Pope Innocent III (1116 - 1216)

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Pope Innocent III (1116 - 1216) declared, “that anyone who attempted to construe a personal view of God which conflicted with Church dogma must be burned without pity.”


Pope Innocent III (Latin: Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni) reigned from 8 January 1198 to his death in 1216.

Pope Innocent was one of the most powerful and influential of the medieval popes. He exerted a wide influence over the Christian states of Europe, claiming supremacy over all of Europe's kings. He was central in supporting the Catholic Church's reforms of ecclesiastical affairs through his decretals and the Fourth Lateran Council. This resulted in a considerable refinement of Western canon law. He is furthermore notable for using interdict and other censures to compel princes to obey his decisions, although these measures were not uniformly successful.


He organized the Fourth Crusade of 1202–1204, which ended in the disastrous sack of Constantinople. Although the attack on Constantinople went against his explicit orders, and the Crusaders were subsequently excommunicated, Innocent reluctantly accepted this result, seeing it as the will of God to reunite the Latin and Orthodox Churches. In the event, the sack of Constantinople and the subsequent period of Frankokratia heightened the hostility between the Latin and Greek churches. (The Byzantine empire was restored in 1261 but never regained its former strength, finally falling in 1453.


Crusades and suppression of heresy

Innocent launched the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars.
Innocent III was a vigorous opponent of religious heresy and undertook campaigns against it. At the beginning of his pontificate, he focused on the Albigenses, also known as the Cathars, a sect that had become widespread in southwestern France, then under the control of local princes, such as the Counts of Toulouse. The Cathars rejected the Christian authority and the teachings of the Catholic Church, claiming it corrupt.

In 1198, Innocent III dispatched a monk named Rainier to visit France with the power to excommunicate heretics, and orders to local temporal authorities to confiscate the lands of heretics or to "as became Christians to deal with them more severely."


The murder of Pierre de Castelnau – Innocent's legate – in 1208, by unknown assailants commonly believed to be friends of Count Raymond of Toulouse (who was not a Cathar himself but was seen as supportive of them), caused Innocent to change his methods from words to weapons. Innocent called upon King Philip II Augustus of France to suppress the Albigenses. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown and soon took on a political flavor, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of practising Cathars and realignment of the County of Toulouse in Languedoc, bringing it into the sphere of the French crown and diminishing the distinct regional culture and high level of influence of the Counts of Barcelona. Under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, a campaign was launched. The Albigensian Crusade, which led to the deaths of approximately 20,000 men, women and children, Cathar and Catholic alike,[25] and brought the region firmly under the control of the king of France. It was directed not only against heretical Christians, but also the nobility of Toulouse and vassals of the Crown of Aragon. King Peter II of Aragon was directly involved in the conflict, and was killed in the course of the Battle of Muret in 1213. The conflict largely ended with the Treaty of Paris of 1229, in which the integration of the Occitan territory in the French crown was agreed upon.


Burning of the Waldensians. Toulouse in the 13th century.
Pope Innocent III spent a majority of his tenure as Pope (1198–1216) preparing for a great crusade on the Holy Land. His first attempt was the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) which he decreed with the papal bull Post miserabile in 1198.[26][27] Unlike past popes, Innocent III displayed interest in leading the crusade himself, rather than simply instigating it and allowing secular leaders to organize the expedition according to their own aspirations.

Innocent III's first order of business in preaching the crusade was to send missionaries to every Catholic state to endorse the campaign. Innocent III sent Peter of Capua to the kings of France and England with specific instructions to convince them to settle their differences. As a result, in 1199, Innocent was successful in forging a truce of five years between the two nations. The intent of the truce between the kings was not to allow them to lead the crusade, but rather to improve the likelihood that they would provide assistance. For the army's leadership, Innocent aimed his pleas at the knights and nobles of Europe.

The pleadings were successful in France, where many lords answered the pope's call, including the army's two eventual leaders, Theobald of Champagne and Boniface, marquis of Montferrat. Innocent III's calls to action were not received with as much enthusiasm in England or Germany. For this reason, the Fourth Crusade became mainly a French affair.

The Fourth Crusade was an expensive endeavor. Innocent III chose to raise funds with a new approach: requiring all clergy to give one fortieth of their income in support of the Crusade. This marked the first time a pope ever imposed a direct tax on his clerical subjects. The pope faced many difficulties with collecting this tax, including corrupt tax collectors and disregard in England. He continued in his attempt to garner funds for his crusade by sending envoys to King John of England and King Philip of France, who pledged to contribute to the campaign.[citation needed] John also declared that the tax would be collected throughout England as well. The other source of funds for the crusade was the crusaders themselves. Innocent declared that those who took the vow to become crusaders but could no longer perform the tasks that they had promised to complete, could be released of their oaths by a contribution of funds to the original cause. The pope put Archbishop Hubert Walter in charge of collecting these dues.

At the onset of the crusade, the intended destination was Egypt, as the Christians and Muslims were under a truce at the time.[28] An agreement was made between the French Crusaders and the Venetians. The Venetians would supply vessels and supplies for the crusaders and in return, the crusaders would pay 85,000 marks (£200,000).[30] Innocent gave his approval of this agreement under two conditions: a representative of the pope must accompany the crusade, and the attack of any other Christians was strictly forbidden. The French failed to raise sufficient funds for payment of the Venetians. As a result, the Crusaders diverted the crusade to the Christian city of Zara at the will of the Venetians to subsidize the debt. This diversion was adopted without the consent of Innocent III, who threatened excommunication to any who took part in the attack. A majority of the French ignored the threat and attacked Zara, and were excommunicated by Innocent III, but soon were forgiven so as to continue the crusade. A second diversion then occurred when the crusaders decided to conquer Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This diversion was taken without any knowledge by Innocent III, and he did not learn of it until after the city had been captured.

Innocent viewed the capture of Constantinople as a way to reunite the schismatic Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The pope excommunicated the Crusaders who attacked Christian cities, but was unable to halt or overturn their actions. Erroneously, he felt that the Latin presence would bring about a reconciliation between the Eastern and Western Churches. His tactics ultimately failed due to the significant differences between the two churches. The crusade did lead to the start of the Latin Empire's rule of Constantinople, which lasted for the next sixty years.