Part 32

As in the affairs of the world at large, so also in those of the church itself, Innocent's authority exceeded that of all his predecessors. Under him the centralization of the ecclesiastical administration at Rome received a great impulse, and the independent jurisdiction of metropolitans and bishops was greatly curtailed. In carrying out this policy his unrivalled knowledge of the canon law gave him a great advantage. To his desire to organize the discipline of the church was due the most questionable of his expedients: the introduction of the system of provisions and reservations, by which he sought to bring the patronage of sees and benefices into his own hands--a system which led later to intolerable abuses.

The year before Innocent's death the twelfth ecumenical council assembled at the Lateran under his presidency. It was a wonderful proof at once of the world-power of the pope and of his undisputed personal ascendancy. It was attended by the plenipotentiaries of the emperor, of kings and of princes, and by some 1500 archbishops, bishops, abbots and other dignitaries. The business before it, the disciplining of heretics and Jews, and the proclamation of a new crusade, &c., vitally concerned the states represented; yet there was virtually no debate and the function of the great assembly was little more than to listen to and endorse the decretals read by the pope (see LATERAN COUNCILS). Shortly after this crowning exhibition of his power the great pope died on the 16th of July 1216.

Innocent III. is one of the greatest historical figures, both in the grandeur of his aims and the force of character which brought him so near to their realization. An appreciation of his work and personality will be found in the article PAPACY; here it will suffice to say that, whatever judgment posterity may have passed on his aims, opinion is united as to the purity of the motives that inspired them and the tireless self-devotion with which they were pursued. "I have no leisure," Innocent once sighed, "to meditate on supermundane things; scarce I can breathe. Yea, so much must I live for others, that almost I am a stranger to myself." Yet he preached frequently, both at Rome and on his journeys--many of his sermons, inspired by a high moral earnestness, have come down to us--and, towards the end of his life, he found time to write a pious exposition of the Psalms. His views on the papal supremacy are best explained in his own words. Writing to the patriarch of Constantinople (_Inn. III., lib._ ii. _ep._ 200) he says: "The Lord left to Peter the governance not of the church only but of the whole world;" and again in his letter to King John of England (_lib._ xvi. ep. 131): "The King of Kings ... so established the kingship and the priesthood in the church, that the kingship should be priestly, and the priesthood royal (_ut sacerdotale sit regnum et sacerdotium sit regale_), as is evident from the epistle of Peter and the law of Moses, setting one over all, whom he appointed his vicar on earth." In his answer to the ambassadors of Philip Augustus he states the premises from which this stupendous claim is logically developed:--

"To princes power is given on earth, but to priests it is attributed also in heaven; to the former only over bodies, to the latter also over souls. Whence it follows that by so much as the soul is superior to the body, the priesthood is superior to the kingship.... Single rulers have single provinces, and single kings single kingdoms; but Peter, as in the plenitude, so in the extent of his power is pre-eminent over all, since he is the Vicar of Him whose is the earth and the fullness thereof, the whole wide world and all that dwell therein."

To the emperor of Constantinople, who quoted 1 Peter ii. 13, 14, to the contrary, he replied in perfect good faith that the apostle's admonition to obey "the king as supreme was addressed to lay folk and not to the clergy." The more intelligent laymen of the time were not convinced even when coerced. Even so pious a Catholic as the minnesinger Walther von der Vogelweide, giving voice to the indignation of German laymen, ascribed Innocent's claims, not to soundness of his scholastic logic, but to the fact that he was "too young" (_owê der babest ist ze junc_).

The literature on Innocent III. is very extensive; a carefully analysed bibliography will be found in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_ (3rd ed., 1901) s. "Innocenz III." In A. Potthast, _Bibliotheca hist. med. aevi_ (2nd ed., Berlin, 1896), p. 650, is a bibliography of the literature on Innocent's writings. In the _Corpus juris canonici_, ed. Aemilius Friedberg (Leipzig, 1881), vol. ii., pp. xiv.-xvii., are lists of the official documents of Innocent III. excerpted in the _Decretales Gregorii IX_. The most important later works on Innocent III. are Achille Luchaire's _Innocent III, Rome et l'Italie_ (Paris, 1904), _Innocent III, la croisade des Albigeois_ (_ib._ 1905), _Innocent III, la papauté et l'empire_ (_ib._ 1906), _Innocent III, la question d'orient_ (_ib._ 1906); _Innocent III, les royautés vassales du Saint-Siège_ (_ib._ 1908); and _Innocent III, la concile de latran et la réforme de l'église_ (1908); _Innocent the Great_, by C. H. C. Pirie-Gordon (London, 1907); is the only English monograph on this pope and contains some useful documents, but is otherwise of little value. See also H. H. Milman, _History of Latin Christianity_, vol. v.; F. Gregorovius, _Rome in the Middle Ages_, translated by A. Hamilton (1896), vol. v. pp. 5-110; J. C. L. Gieseler, _Ecclesiastical Hist._, translated by J. W. Hull, vol. iii. (Edinburgh, 1853), which contains numerous excerpts from his letters, &c. Innocent's works are found in Migne, _Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina_, vols. ccxiv.-ccxvii. For a translation of Innocent's answer to King John on the interdict, and John's surrender of England and Ireland to Innocent, see Gee and Hardy, _Documents illustrative of Church History_ (London, 1896), pp. 73 et seq. (W. A. P.)

INNOCENT IV. (Sinibaldo Fiesco), pope 1243-1254, belonged to the noble Genoese family of the counts of Lavagna. Born at Genoa, he was educated under the care of his uncle Opizo, bishop of Parma. After taking orders at Parma, when he was made canon of the cathedral, he studied jurisprudence at Bologna. His first recorded appearance in political affairs was in 1218-1219, when he was associated with Cardinal Hugolinus (afterwards Gregory IX.) in negotiating a peace between Genoa and Pisa. This led to his rapid promotion. In 1223 Pope Honorius III. gave him a benefice in Parma, and in 1226 he was established at the curia as _auditor contradictarum literarum_ of the pope, a post he held also under Gregory IX., until promoted (1227) to be vice-chancellor of the Roman Church. In September of the same year he was created cardinal priest of San Lorenzo in Lucina. He was papal _rector_ (governor) of the March of Ancona from 1235 to 1240. On the 25th of June 1243 he was elected pope by the cardinals assembled at Anagni.

Innocent was raised to the Holy See when it was at deadly feud with the emperor Frederick II., who lay under excommunication. Frederick at first greeted the elevation of a member of an imperialist family with joy; but it was soon clear that Innocent intended to carry on the traditions of his predecessors. Embassies and courtesies were, indeed, interchanged, and on the 31st of March 1244 a treaty was signed at Rome, whereby the emperor undertook to satisfy the pope's claims in return for his own absolution from the ban. Neither side, however, was prepared to take the first steps to carry out the agreement, and Innocent, who had ventured back to Rome, began to feel unsafe in the city, where the imperial partisans had the ascendancy. Fearing a plan to kidnap him, he left Rome, ostensibly to meet the emperor, and from Sutri fled by night on horseback, pursued by 300 of the emperor's cavalry, to Civitavecchia, whence he took ship for Genoa and thence proceeded across the Alps to Lyons, at that time a merely nominal dependence of the Empire. Thence he wrote to the French king, Louis IX., asking for an asylum in France; but this Louis cautiously refused. Innocent, therefore, remained at Lyons, whence he issued a summons to a general council, before which he cited Frederick to appear in person, or by deputy. The council, which met on the 5th of June 1245, was attended only by those prepared to support the pope's cause; and though Frederick condescended to be represented by his justiciar, Thaddeus of Suessa, the judgment was a foregone conclusion. On the 17th of July Innocent formally renewed the sentence of excommunication on the emperor, and declared him deposed from the imperial throne and that of Naples. Frederick retorted by announcing his intention of reducing "the clergy, especially the highest, to a state of apostolic poverty," and by ordaining the severest punishments for those priests who should obey the papal sentence. Innocent thereupon proclaimed a crusade against the emperor and armed his ubiquitous agents, the Franciscan and Dominican friars, with special indulgences for all those who should take up the cross against the imperial heretic. At the same time he did all in his power to undermine Frederick's authority in Germany and Italy. In Naples he fomented a conspiracy among the feudal lords, who were discontented with the centralized government established under the auspices of Frederick's chancellor, Piero della Vigna. In Germany, at his instigation, the archbishops with a few of the secular nobles in 1246 elected Henry Raspe, landgrave of Thuringia, German king; but the "priests' king," as he was contemptuously called, died in the following year, William II., count of Holland, being after some delay elected by the papal party in his stead.

Innocent's relentless war against Frederick was not supported by the lay opinion of his time. In Germany, where it wrought havoc and misery, it increased the already bitter resentment against the priests. From England the pope's legate was driven by threats of personal violence. In France not even the saintly King Louis IX., who made several vain attempts to mediate, approved the pope's attitude; and the failure of the crusade which, in 1248, he led against the Mussulmans in Egypt, was, with reason, ascribed to the deflection of money and arms from this purpose to the war against the emperor. Even the clergy were by no means altogether on Innocent's side; the council of Lyons was attended by but 150 bishops, mainly French and Spanish, and the deputation from England, headed by Robert Grossetête of Lincoln and Roger Bigod, came mainly in order to obtain the canonization of Edmund of Canterbury and to protest against papal exactions. Yet, for better or for worse, Innocent triumphed. His financial position was from the outset strong, for not only had he the revenue from the accustomed papal dues but he had also the support of the powerful religious orders; e.g. in November 1245 he visited the abbey of Cluny and was presented by the abbot with gifts, the value of which surprised even the papal officials. At first the war went in Frederick's favour; then came the capture of the strategically important city of Parma by papal partisans (June 16th, 1247). From this moment fortune changed. On the 18th of February 1248 Frederick's camp before Parma (the temporary town of Vittoria) was taken and sacked, the imperial insignia--of vast significance in those days--being captured. From this blow the emperor never recovered; and when on the 13th of December 1250 he died Innocent greeted the news by quoting from Psalm xcvi. 11, "Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad."

On the 19th of April 1251 Innocent left Lyons, which had suffered severely from his presence, and returned to Italy. He continued the struggle vigorously with Frederick's son and successor, Conrad IV., who in 1252 descended into Italy, reduced the rebellious cities and claimed the imperial crown. Innocent, determined that the Hohenstaufen should not again dominate Italy, offered the crown of Sicily in turn to Richard of Cornwall, Charles of Anjou, and Henry III. of England, the last of whom accepted the doubtful gift for his son Edmund. Even after Conrad's capture of Naples Innocent remained inexorable; for he feared that Rome itself might fall into the hands of the German king. But fortune favoured him. On the 20th of May 1254 Conrad died, leaving his infant son Conradin, as Henry VI. had left Frederick II., under the pope's guardianship. Innocent accepted the charge and posed as the champion of the infant king. He held, indeed, to his bargain with Henry III. and, with all too characteristic nepotism, exercised his rights over the Sicilian kingdom by nominating his own relations to its most important offices. Finally, when Manfred, who by Frederick's will had been charged with the government of the two Sicilies, felt obliged to acknowledge the pope's suzerainty, Innocent threw off the mask, ignored Conradin's claims, and on the 24th of October formally asserted his own claims to Calabria and Sicily. He entered Naples on the 27th; but meanwhile Manfred had fled and had raised a considerable force; and the news of his initial successes against the papal troops reached Innocent as he lay sick and hastened his end. He died on the 7th of December 1254.

Innocent IV. is comparable to his greater predecessor Innocent III. mainly in the extreme assertion of the papal claims. "The emperor," he wrote, "doubts and denies that all men and all things are subject to the See of Rome. As if we who are judges of angels are not to give sentence on earthly things.... The ignorant assert that Constantine first gave temporal power to the See of Rome; it was already bestowed by Christ Himself, the true King and Priest, as inalienable from its nature and absolutely unconditional. Christ established not only a pontifical but a royal sovereignty (_principatus_) and committed to blessed Peter and his successors the empire both of earth and heaven, as is sufficiently proved by the plurality of the keys" (_Codex epist. Vatic._ No. 4957, 49, quoted in Raumer, _Hohenstaufen_, iv. 78). But this language, which in the mouth of Innocent III. had been consecrated by the greatness of his character and aims, was less impressive when it served as a cloak for an unlimited personal ambition and a family pride which displayed itself in unblushing nepotism. Yet in some respects Innocent IV. carried on the high traditions of his great predecessors. Thus he admonished Sancho II. of Portugal to turn from his evil courses and, when the king disobeyed, absolved the Portuguese from their allegiance, bestowing the crown on his brother Alphonso. He also established an ecclesiastical organization in the newly converted provinces of Prussia, which he divided into four dioceses; but his attempt to govern the Baltic countries through a legate broke on the opposition of the Teutonic Order, whose rights in Prussia he had confirmed.

It was Innocent IV. who, at the council of Lyons, first bestowed the red hat on the Roman cardinals, as a symbol of their readiness to shed their blood in the cause of the church.

Innocent was a canon lawyer of some eminence. His small work _De exceptionibus_ was probably written before he became pope; but the _Apparatus in quinque libros decretalium_, which displays both practical sense and a remarkable mastery of the available materials, was written at Lyons immediately after the council. His _Apologeticus_, a defence of the papal claims against the Empire, written--as is supposed--in refutation of Piero della Vigna's argument in favour of the independence of the Empire, has been lost. Innocent was also a notable patron of learning, he encouraged Alexander of Hales to write his _Summa universae theologiae_, did much for the universities, notably the Sorbonne, and founded law schools at Rome and Piacenza.

Innocent's letters, the chief source for his life, are collected by E. Berger in _Les Registres d'Innocent IV_ (3 vols., Paris, 1884-1887). For English readers the account in Milman's _Latin Christianity_, vol. vi. (3rd ed., 1864) is still useful. Full references will be found in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_, vol. ix. (1901). (W. A. P.)

INNOCENT V. (Pierre de Champagni or de Tarentaise), pope from the 21st of January to the 22nd of June 1276, was born about 1225 in Savoy and entered the Dominican order at an early age. He studied theology under Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus and Bonaventura, and in 1262 was elected provincial of his order in France. He was made archbishop of Lyons in 1271; cardinal-bishop of Ostia and Velletri, and grand penitentiary in 1275; and, partly through the influence of Charles of Anjou, was elected to succeed Gregory X. As pope he established peace between the republics of Lucca and Pisa, and confirmed Charles of Anjou in his office of imperial vicar of Tuscany. He was seeking to carry out the Lyons agreement with the Eastern Church when he died. His successor was Adrian V. Innocent V., before he became pope, prepared, in conjunction with Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, a rule of studies for his order, which was accepted in June 1259. He was the author of several works in philosophy, theology and canon law, including commentaries on the Scriptures and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and is sometimes referred to as _famosissimus doctor_. He preached the funeral sermon at Lyons over St Bonaventura. His bulls are in the Turin collection (1859).

See F. Gregorovius, _Rome in the Middle Ages_, vol. 5, trans. by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1900-1902); A. Potthast, _Regesta, pontif. Roman._ vol. ii. (Berlin, 1875); E. Bourgeois, _Le Bienheureux Innocent V_ (Paris, 1899); J. E. Borel, _Notice biogr. sur Pierre de Tarentaise_ (Chambéry, 1890); P. J. Béthaz, _Pierre des Cours de la Salle, pape sous le nom Innocent V_ (Augustae, 1891); L. Carboni, _De Innocentio V. Romano pontifice_ (1894). (C. H. Ha.)

INNOCENT VI. (Étienne Aubert), pope from the 18th of December 1352 to the 12th of September 1362, was born at Mons in Limousin. He became professor of civil law at Toulouse and subsequently chief judge of the city. Having taken orders, he was raised to the see of Noyon and translated in 1340 to that of Clermont. In 1342 he was made cardinal-priest of Sti Giovanni e Paolo, and ten years later cardinal-bishop of Ostia and Velletri, grand penitentiary, and administrator of the bishopric of Avignon. On the death of Clement VI., the cardinals made a solemn agreement imposing obligations, mainly in favour of the college as a whole, on whichever of their number should be elected pope. Aubert was one of the minority who signed the agreement with the reservation that in so doing he would not violate any law, and was elected pope on this understanding; not long after his accession he declared the agreement null and void, as infringing the divinely-bestowed power of the papacy. Innocent was one of the best Avignon popes and filled with reforming zeal; he revoked the reservations and commendations of his predecessor and prohibited pluralities; urged upon the higher clergy the duty of residence in their sees, and diminished the luxury of the papal court. Largely through the influence of Petrarch, whom he called to Avignon, he released Cola di Rienzo, who had been sent a prisoner in August 1352 from Prague to Avignon, and used the latter to assist Cardinal Albornoz, vicar-general of the States of the Church, in tranquillizing Italy and restoring the papal power at Rome. Innocent caused Charles IV. to be crowned emperor at Rome in 1355, but protested against the famous "Golden Bull" of the following year, which prohibited papal interference in German royal elections. He renewed the ban against Peter the Cruel of Castile, and interfered in vain against Peter IV. of Aragon. He made peace between Venice and Genoa, and in 1360 arranged the treaty of Bretigny between France and England. In the last years of his pontificate he was busied with preparations for a crusade and for the reunion of Christendom, and sent to Constantinople the celebrated Carmelite monk, Peter Thomas, to negotiate with the claimants to the Greek throne. He instituted in 1354 the festival of the Holy Lance. Innocent was a strong and earnest man of monastic temperament, but not altogether free from nepotism. He was succeeded by Urban V.

The chief sources for the life of Innocent VI. are in Baluzius, _Vitae Pap. Avenion_, vol. i. (Paris, 1693); _Magnum bullarium Romanum_, vol. iv. (Turin, 1859); E. Werunsky, _Excerpta ex registris Clementis VI. et Innocentii VI._ (Innsbruck, 1885). See also L. Pastor _History of the Popes_, vol. i. trans. by F. I. Antrobus (London, 1899); F. Gregorovius, _Rome in the Middle Ages_, vol. 6, trans. by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1900-1902); D. Cerri, _Innocenzo Papa VI._ (Turin, 1873); J. B. Christophe, _Histoire de la papauté pendant le XIV^e siècle_, vol. 2 (Paris, 1853); M. Souchon, _Die Papstwahlen_ (Brunswick, 1888); G. Daumet, _Innocent VI. et Blanche de Bourbon_ (Paris, 1899); E. Werunsky, _Gesch. Kaiser Karls IV._ (Innsbruck, 1892). There is an excellent article by M. Naumann in Hauck's _Realencyklopädie_, 3rd ed. (C. H. Ha.)

INNOCENT VII. (Cosimo dei Migliorati), pope from the 17th of October 1404 to the 6th of November 1406, was born of middle-class parentage at Sulmona in the Abruzzi in 1339. On account of his knowledge of civil and canon law, he was made papal vice-chamberlain and archbishop of Ravenna by Urban VI., and appointed by Boniface IX. cardinal priest of Sta Croce in Gerusalemme, bishop of Bologna, and papal legate to England. He was unanimously chosen to succeed Boniface, after each of the cardinals had solemnly bound himself to employ all lawful means for the restoration of the church's unity in the event of his election, and even, if necessary, to resign the papal dignity. The election was opposed at Rome by a considerable party, but peace was maintained by the aid of Ladislaus of Naples, in return for which Innocent made a promise, inconsistent with his previous oath, not to come to terms with the antipope Benedict XIII., except on condition that he should recognize the claims of Ladislaus to Naples. Innocent issued at the close of 1404 a summons for a general council to heal the schism, and it was not the pope's fault that the council never assembled, for the Romans rose in arms to secure an extension of their liberties, and finally maddened by the murder of some of their leaders by the pope's nephew, Ludovico dei Migliorati, they compelled Innocent to take refuge at Viterbo (6th of August 1405). The Romans, recognizing later the pope's innocence of the outrage, made their submission to him in January 1406. He returned to Rome in March, and, by bull of the 1st of September, restored the city's decayed university. Innocent was extolled by contemporaries as a lover of peace and honesty, but he was without energy, guilty of nepotism, and showed no favour to the proposal that he as well as the antipope should resign. He died on the 6th of November 1406 and was succeeded by Gregory XII.

See L. Pastor, _History of the Popes_, vol. i., trans. by F. I. Antrobus (London, 1899); M. Creighton, _History of the Papacy_, vol. i. (London, 1899); N. Valois, _La France et le grand schisme d'occident_ (Paris, 1896-1902); Louis Gayet, _Le Grand Schisme d'occident_ (Paris, 1898); J. Loserth, _Geschichte des späteren Mittelalters_ (1903); Theodorici de Nyem, _De schismate libri tres_, ed. by G. Erler (Leipzig, 1890); K. J. von Hefele, _Conciliengeschichte_, Bd. 6, 2nd ed.; J. von Haller, _Papsttum u. Kirchenreform_ (Berlin, 1903). (C. H. Ha.)