The Innocent III papacy
May 12 '03
The Bottom Line A look at the papacy of Innocent III.
The rise of modernity has brought with it many new beliefs and institutions to both the secular and religious life. One of those often highly regarded beliefs is that there should be a definitive separation between church and state. This has not always been the case, though. During the reign of Pope Innocent III, the way in which the papacy interacted with the secular world was far different than it is today. The decisions of Innocent III would shape both the religious realm and the political theatre and would significantly alter the way in which the papacy would rule.
Innocent III was only thirty-seven when he ascended to the papal throne. (Barraclough 112) To some, it may have seemed as though having a relatively young pope, even for those times, would have brought a sense of timidity and weakness to the papal throne. However, as will be evidenced through the decisions and actions of Innocent III, timidity is not a word that accurately defines his reign as pope.
The reign of Innocent III is one that was filled with a pope that had to make tough decisions to protect the vitality of the Catholic Church, and therefore, often times had to act quite definitively on matters that would possibly go against the best interests of Christianity. Not only Alexander III but also Gregory VIII and Innocent III were lawyers by training, and so were a high proportion of the cardinals. As has been frequently observed, there was no saint among the twelfth-century popes. (Barraclough 106)
One of Innocent’s largest problems that he had to encounter was what to do with the problem of the heretics throughout Europe. It is quite apparent that Innocent did not have a warm spot in his heart for heretics, at all. To Pope Innocent III heretics were as bad as Muslims. They were a threat to Christendom, a threat as Hostiensis put it, to Catholic unity, which was in fact more dangerous than that to the Holy Land. (Riley-Smith 20) The heretics, as Innocent saw them, posed almost more of a threat to regaining the Holy Land than the Muslims, themselves.
Whereas the Muslims would be an obvious foe to encounter en route to the Holy Land, having to battle heretics along the way would simply be divisive for all of Catholicism and would divert crusaders’ attention from the main objective of taking back the Holy Land.
Within his speech to the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Innocent chooses not to hold back any emotions when speaking about the heretics that the Catholic Church faced during the times. He stated, “We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that raises itself against the holy, orthodox, and Catholic faith which we have above explained; condemning all heretics under whatever names they may be known, for while they have different faces, they are nevertheless bound to each other by their tails, since in all of them vanity is the common element.” (Canon 3, pg. 242)
For the most part, the war on heresy was generally thought to be a logical step in preserving Christianity and ensuring the stability of all of Europe. For example, the crusade against the Albigensian heretics of southern France preached by Innocent III was generally approved in Western Europe.” (Cantor 300) Anytime in which Innocent could call upon the masses to help him defend the church against heresy, the battle cry for the crusaders was made more tenable and was something that crusaders could and would rally behind in the name of Christianity.
On March 10, 1208, Innocent III wrote a letter addressed to the kings, prelates, nobles, and commoners of France. In it, he denounced Raymond of Toulouse as a murder and a heretic. He urged the French, for the sake of the faith, to march against the heretics and supporters of heresy in Languedoc and take their lands for them. (Madden 129) Once again, one can see that Innocent’s two fold objectives could be hid behind a veil of another person’s personal well-being or self-interest. Innocent knew that if he could successfully preach to the faithful in France to destroy the heretics that were ravaging their country, through the faithful he could achieve two things: eliminate heresy in the name of spreading and strengthening Christianity and returning lands to papal control via the faithful in France. While it was important to the faithful French to remove the heretics so the homeland would simply be theirs again, those who fought in Languedoc absolutely fed into Innocent III’s larger plans.
Just as terrible as heresy was to the strength and vitality of Christianity during the times of Innocent, closely linked to the issue of heresy was the issue of paganism. Paganism throughout history has been scapegoat to one religion’s strength, and in the instance of Innocent III’s position on the matter, there really was no difference. In 1209, Pope Innocent III encouraged the King of Denmark to take the Cross and share in the indulgence granted to German crusaders ‘to extirpate the error of paganism and spread the frontiers of the Christian faith’. (Riley-Smith 10)
It is important to consider the matter of the King of Denmark because it is important to the reign of Innocent III on two very different, yet connected, levels. Innocent’s encouraging of the King of Denmark to “extirpate the error of paganism” benefited Innocent’s desire to see paganism completely voided from any of the papal regions and was also fundamental to Innocent’s papal desire to continuously spread the actual and tangible land that the papacy could call its own. By urging the King of Denmark to take up arms with the crusaders, Innocent was hoping he would be able to achieve two of his objectives all at once.
Again, an instance in which the need for all of Christianity to rally behind fellow Christians in defense of paganism arose in 1199. Pope Innocent III authorized the Livonian Crusade in 1199. To Innocent III there had been persecution of Christian converts in Livonia by their pagan neighbors. An army must therefore be raised ‘in defense of the Christians in those parts’ and protection was promised to all who went to defend the church of Livonia. (Riley-Smith 18) It was fundamental to the rule of Innocent that Christians, no matter where they were, or in this case how long they were Christians, demanded the attention and respect of fellow Christians. In this instance, those living in Livonia, although Christian for a short time, should and would be protected and supported by other Christians, especially since pagans were attacking the Livonians. This coming together of Christians in perilous times helped Innocent in his goal to unite Christians across the map in the goal of taking back the Holy Land and spreading Christianity further.
The issue of uniting Christians for the common good of the church was not only a belief that Innocent felt strongly about, but also a religious law as defined in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. “Desirous, therefore, of removing such scandal from the Church of God, and advised by the holy council, we strictly command that they do not presume to do such things in the future, but conform themselves as obedient children to the Holy Roman Church, their mother, that there may be ‘one fold and one shepherd.’ If anyone shall presume to act contrary to this, let him be excommunicated and deposed from every office and ecclesiastical benefice.” (Canon 4, pg. 245)
The issue of regaining or maintaining the Holy Land was the number one priority of virtually every pope during the Crusades. Innocent was no different. Above all, Innocent was determined to restore Christian control over the Holy Land. No goal was nearer to his heart than the reconquest of Jerusalem. (Madden 99) Hence, because it was so fundamentally important to Innocent to regain the Holy Land from the infidels, it was also important for him to bring together Christians, as was seen in the previous account of Livonia. More united Christians working for the ultimate goal of regaining the Holy Land would be a force to be reckoned with.
The most definitive example of Innocent calling for a Crusade to regain the Holy Land comes within his Fourth Lateran Council speech. Innocent gives an invigorating ultimatum to those who would choose to go on the crusade by stating, “Desiring with an ardent desire to liberate the Holy Land from the hands of the ungodly, we decree with the advice of the prudent men who are fully familiar with the circumstances of the times, and with the approval of the council, that all who have taken the cross and have decided to cross the sea, hold themselves so prepared that they may, on June 1 of the year after next, come together in the Kingdom of Sicily, some at Brundusium and others at Mesana, where God willing, we will be present to order and to bestow on the Christian army the divine and apostolic blessing.” (Fourth Lateran Council 292)
The shape of Innocent’s new crusade to the East was revealed in Quia Major, the encyclical that he sent to the people of Christendom in April and May of 1213. In it, Innocent called all the faithful, irrespective of social or economic status, to heed the call of the church and come to the aid of the crucified Christ. For too long, he proclaimed, the infidel held the Holy City. (Madden 143) The notion of both uniting Christians across Europe under the flag of returning the Holy Land to Christian control was directly and publicly stated as a goal of Innocent’s papacy in his Quia Major.
During his pontificate, Latin Christendom came nearest to being united under one supreme head and the papacy emerged as a monarchy that possessed the machinery and the moral force sufficient to govern the spiritual work and the organization of the church, but also to arbitrate intervene in, and control the affairs of secular rulers. (Hoyt 350) Nothing could have been sweeter to Innocent than the complete uniting of Latin Christendom under his notion of a papal monarchy. By placing all of Christianity under one leader who was charged with both religious matters and political matters, Innocent definitely felt as though he would be able to fortify the Catholic Church into an institution that heretics, pagans, and Muslims would simply shudder from.
Another instance when Innocent III called upon the Christians to weed out paganism is when he spoke at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. In the bull convoking the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, Innocent III summoned the Christians to the crusade against the Saracens whom he considered pagans, and Joinville constantly called the Muslim world ‘la paiennie’ or ‘pagandom’. (Le Goff 146) The Saracens posed a direct threat to a smooth crusade to take back the Holy Land. By invoking the notion amongst the crusaders that the Saracens were pagans, Innocent knew that he would be able to draw upon the already built up anti-pagan sentiments that so many Christians had. Even Joinville joined the attack on the pagans by denouncing all Muslims as being a member of pagandom.
It does not seem, however, that Innocent merely wanted to root our paganism through means of violence alone. Innocent’s objectives were, on the one hand, to combat heresy and paganism, and, on the other hand, to eradicate the abuses through which, if they were not remedied, heresy was bound to flourish. (Barraclough 135) By taking a solely violent approach to attempting to eradicate paganism, Innocent realized that pagans would still exist somewhere, because nothing with what they disagreed with would be changed. Innocent was keen enough to understand that should there be a concerted effort to eradicate paganism for good, internal changes within the Catholic church itself would also have to take place.
Innocent proposed several different measures that he felt would help in the redefining of the Church’s role in the world and would hopefully clarify many things so that the spread of heresy would be curbed by positive church hierarchical change. After all, in 1215, the papacy was at the center and it was the pope, Innocent III, who drew up the programme of reform, to be put into effect by the bishops, and it was to the papacy that the people looked, in the old spirit, to reform the church. (Barraclough 135)
However, things simply did not turn out as positively as Innocent would have hoped for. The consequence was already visible at the time of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, when Innocent III tried to inaugurate a period of reform. The response was negligible. Although some bishops sincerely tried to enforce reforming decrees, Episcopal power was no longer strong enough to become a vehicle of reform, while the pope could only lead and not direct the execution of the decrees in detail. (Barraclough 128) This administrative weakness of Innocent did not seem to detract him from the more grandiose plans that he had in mind.
As was the case with the Livonian Crusade, Innocent hoped for Christians to unite no matter where they may be from and organized the crusaders behind the banner of Christ himself. To Innocent III the crusade was an enterprise that was particularly Christ’s own and those who aided the Muslims were acting against the ‘interests of Christ himself and the Christian people’. (Riley-Smith 25) Such a belief definitely has vast implications for heretics, pagans, and Muslims, alike. No matter if a person were a pagan, a heretic, or a Muslim, although uniquely different, they did have one thing in common: they were acting against Christ himself. And because of this one uniting reason amongst the three groups, each entity was subject to slaughter by the Christians because, after all, they were working for Christ himself. And therefore, anyone who was true to the crusading spirit and nature was directly working for Christ and would ultimately be saved.
Innocent’s idea of “with us or against us” is also demonstrated in his Ad Liberandam section of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 when he states, “But to those declining to take part, if indeed there be by chance such men ungrateful to the Lord our God, we firmly state on behalf of the Apostle that they should know that they will have to reply to us on this matter in the presence of the Dreadful Judge on the Last Day of Severe Judgment.” (Riley-Smith 31) Innocent’s appeal here is quite obviously to those whom are devoutly religious. He asks that anyone who is grateful to the Lord God to take up arms for the benefit of the entire Catholic Church. And he even is bold enough to offer somewhat of a warning to those whom choose not to take part in the crusades by warning that God would judge them unfavorably at the time of the final judgment, because they made a conscientious decision not to protect the institution of Christianity while they were alive.
Within Canon 3 of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 speech Innocent offers more friendly advice to those who are considering abetting the heretics. “We decree that those who give credence to the teachings of the heretics, as well as those who receive, defend, and patronize them are excommunicated; and we firmly declare that after any one of them has been branded with excommunication, if he has deliberately failed to make satisfaction within a year.” (Cannon 3, pg. 243) As was customary with the strong-handed rule of Innocent, he had no qualms to use the power of excommunication to achieve his ultimate goal of strengthening the Church by eliminating heresy.
As was previously mentioned, Innocent III’s reign was unique in the sense that he felt as though the line between the idea of a pope and a king should be greatly diminished. Often times, the papacy remains on the periphery of temporal matters, but during the reign of Innocent, this was not the case. Innocent III wrote a decretal entitled Novit, in which he justified papal interference in temporal matters as, rationae peccatti, by reason of the sin involved in them.” (Riley-Smith 34) Because much in the temporal or secular world is the cause of sin, Innocent felt as though it was his papal duty to ensure that temporal matters were closely scrutinized by the pope for his approval, or ultimately, religious backing.
As was the case with practically each and every crusade launched by the Catholic church, the crusades that Innocent called for all relied upon one central theme: returning land that should belong to the Catholic church back to the church. It may, indeed, be said that it was Boso who initiated the policy of territorial recuperation and expansion, which was the main cause of the great conflicts of empire and papacy under Alexander III and Innocent III. (Barraclough 98) Innocent III believed in the notion of territorial recuperation so much that he was willing to call for crusades against pagans who tried obtaining Catholic land, such as the Livonians, and also against Muslims whom he felt unrightfully held the Holy Land as Muslim territory. The notion of expansion of Christian lands was also important to Innocent, as was previously mentioned in the instance of the King of Denmark, so that Christianity could spread safely and the worry of paganism spreading simply would be a non-issue.
Pope Innocent III transformed the theory of papal monarchy and, to a lesser extent, changed the practice of papal government during his pontificate. He pushed the papacy in new directions, created new justifications for the exercise of papal authority, and used older justifications in new ways. (Pennington 13) One might argue that Innocent had but no other option than to take this route, or else, he might have seen the downturn of the Catholic Church on a global level. Had Innocent not created new justifications for the exercise of papal authority nor pushed the papacy in new directions, the stagnant Catholic Church would have lost even more credibility and power to pagans, heretics, and even the Muslims. Innocent’s unwavering desire to regain the Holy Land while at the same time expand the borders of Catholicism allowed him to devote his entire being into the betterment of the Catholic Church.
The reason as to why Innocent III more than likely wanted to extend the actual territory of the Catholic Church deals directly with the idea and role of political power residing with the papacy. The conclusion most have reached is that he did not assert any claim to the direct exercise of political power, except, of course, within the Papal States. (Barraclough 113) Therefore, the more land that the pope could call a part of the Papal States, the more land, by implication, Innocent could say he had political power within. While it was clearly good for the entire Catholic Church to be allowed to spread throughout Europe for reasons of security and vitality, it was also essential to Innocent’s self-serving desire to obtain more and more political power for himself, as well.
Innocent was not a dumb man by any standards. He intuitively grasped the constitutional position of the bishops and realized the necessity of constructing arguments for papal monarchy independent of human authority and historical precedents. (Pennington 195) Having been so committed to the idea of a papal monarchy, Innocent clearly was not going to let anything stand in his way to achieving just that. He knew that he would have to appeal to the ecclesia in a different manner than he would have to appeal to converts from paganism while trying to get his two ultimate goals across. Moreover, having been a learned man, Innocent keenly crafted arguments for each group of people and others as to the importance of achieving his goals.
Under the notion of the creation of a papal monarchy, Innocent was able to greatly expand upon both his own individual power and the strength of the Catholic Church.
The system of the papal monarchy was established so that the pope was supreme judge of all spiritual causes and- indirectly, as he claimed- of many, if not all, temporal disputes. (Hoyt 355) Clearly, Innocent paid no importance to an idea of separation of Church and state. Rather, he felt as though the pope should ultimately have final say in matters dealing with both institutions.
The idea of creating a papal monarchy is something of an interesting point. Under such a system, nothing, as Innocent said, was outside the province of the papacy, and he felt compelled to legislate not only on the matter of heretics, but also on the treatment of the Jews. (Cantor 426) It might seem as though Innocent was more concerned with being somewhat of a world leader rather than the leader of a religion when matters such as this are heard about. Not only did Innocent care about what was happening to the faithful of his religion by the heretics, but he also concerned himself with the Jews. Perhaps it was the similar originations that Innocent felt obliged to lend a hand, but clearly, this was not a thought of popes prior to Innocent. It would make sense that one of the main reasons he may have wanted to help the Jews was due to the fact that they shared a common interest in dislike of the Muslims. Innocent may have felt that a cohabitation of the Holy Land with the Jews could have been far more favorable than with the Muslims, although there is no evidence to prove this theory.
Innocent did not merely stop at intervening in the lives, politics, and religions of the Jews, but rather, felt as though his notion of the papal monarchy was something that could benefit many more people than that. The papal claim to supreme jurisdiction over all moral, spiritual, or ecclesiastical clauses led Innocent to intervene in the internal affairs of the kingdoms and principalities of Europe. (Hoyt 352) This would tend to support the idea that perhaps Innocent was somewhat an ego-driven megalomaniac and was not nearly as concerned with the well being of the Catholic Church, but rather, was more concerned with his own power and prestige. While not fully supporting such a notion, it is an important one to consider, nonetheless.
Just to show some of the reach Innocent utilized his papal monarchy belief, a cursory glance at Europe and Innocent’s intervention at the time will shed some interesting light. Innocent also used the spiritual weapons to the indirect or excommunication in his relations with the rulers of Castile, Leon, Navarre, and Norway. By the end of his pontificate Innocent was acknowledged as feudal lord of the kingdoms of Sicily, Portugal, Aragon, and England in the west, and of Bulgaria and Armenia in the east, while Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland recognized the pope’s superiority and right to intervene or arbitrate in their internal affairs. (Hoyt 353) It is quite clear to see that Innocent would go to any means viable to attain whatever it is that he wanted. Whether it was through the religious action of excommunication or through military force, Innocent soon became in charge of a large portion of Europe from coast to border. Just when one might have thought there really could be nothing left for Innocent to desire, another kingdom would be sought by Innocent and would ultimately come under his control.
Whether dealing with the pagans, the heretics, or the Muslims, it is quite apparent that Innocent III did not live up to his name and was not an opponent of the use of force. It seems unlikely that Innocent was motivated by humanitarian reasons. He shared in the militant Christianity of his time, and the threat to the church from the great wave of antisacerdotalism tended to make ecclesiastical leaders even more intolerant and severe in their dealings with those who dissented from the Catholic faith. (Cantor 426-7) As stated previously, nothing could really stand in the way of Innocent and his goals. Innocent called for many crusades on may different people and approved of the use of murder and war to achieve his ultimate goals.
Interestingly, though, Innocent’s reign and crusading nature was not left solely for battles against the Muslims. Rather, during 1204 those who were faithful to Innocent went on the Fourth Crusade. The Fourth Crusade of 1204 was undoubtedly the most successful of all the later oriental expeditions, but it was directed at Byzantium, rather than the Moslem world. Pope Innocent III, who preached the crusade, did not originally intend it to take this form. (Cantor 299) While Innocent may have not originally desired the Crusaders to take on the Christians in Byzantium, the crusaders took his orders to mean just that and sacked the city of Byzantium, as if it were a Muslim stronghold.
When Innocent III heard of the conduct of his pilgrims, he was filled with shame. He wrote to his legate: ‘For they who are supposed to serve Christ rather than themselves, who should have used their sword against the infidels, have bathed those swords in the blood of Christians. They have not spared religion, nor age, nor sex and have committed adultery and fornication in public exposing matrons and even nuns to the filthiness of their troops’. (Madden 121)
One cannot simply place all of the blame upon the shoulders of the wayward crusaders, however. Innocent had his crusaders so wrapped up in his desire to both take back the Holy Land and spread Catholicism (Innocent’s version of it) that Byzantium seemed like a fine choice to stop along the way. Rather than the Greek Orthodoxy that was being preached in Byzantium, conquering the city and infusing Catholicism into the culture of Byzantium would make far more sense, at least to the Crusaders.
Despite their oaths and the threat of excommunication, they ruthlessly and systematically violated Byzantium’s holy sanctuaries, destroying, defiling, or stealing all they could lay hands on. (Madden 121) Clearly a dark spot on the reign of Pope Innocent III, the sacking of Byzantium was simply a by-product of the Catholic fanaticism that Innocent indoctrinated into each and every crusader during his papacy.
The papacy of Innocent III was filled with a new way of doing things, mainly through the vehicle of the papal monarchy. Whether it was the attempts to regain the Holy Land from the infidel Muslims or whether it was the desire to rid the Papal States from paganism and heresy, Innocent III brought vast changes to the Catholic Church. Having been known as the first true papal monarch, the Catholic Church had bridged the gap into government and politics, and Innocent III would forever be seen as not only a great leader of the Catholic Church, but also a leader of all of Europe.
(Any full bibliographical information can be provided should it be desired.)
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