the “vicar of Christ,” which became a key papalist term, replacing an older emphasis on
the Roman pontiff as vicar of Peter.
Innocent benefited from a crisis of leadership in both the ecclesiastical and secular
spheres. Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa’s son, Henry VI, had died young, leaving his
son, Frederick, heir to Sicily and to a claim on the empire, as the pope’s ward. Philip II
Augustus of France and John Lackland of England were at odds, and the English nobility
was restive. The Byzantine empire was weak, and the crusader states were under siege.
The bishops of France were unable to deal with the Cathars, and the Cistercians were
losing the influence they had enjoyed when Bernard was alive.
The Roman pontiff intervened in these situations with adroit and persistent efforts,
supported by well-reasoned papal letters. Even the legitimation of a French nobleman’s
bastard could be the occasion for a declaration, in the decretal Per venerabilem, that the
French kingdom was not subject to the empire. A dispute over the imperial succession in
Germany allowed Innocent to keep the Hohenstaufen weak, while establishing a claim
that the pope could review the election of a king of the Romans. Frederick II was
supported in Sicily but with an intention of keeping the Regno separate from the empire.
Efforts to reconcile Philip and John were unsuccessful, as the Capetians gained control of
Normandy, and Philip refused to take back Ingeborg of Denmark as his wife. On the one
hand, through the imposition of an interdict, Innocent was able to compel John to accept
Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury and to become a vassal of the Holy See.
On the other hand, Innocent supported his new vassal by declaring Magna carta void,
helping embroil John in a civil war in which the French intervened.
Innocent’s crusading policy had mixed fortunes. A Spanish army defeated the
Muslims of Spain and North Africa at Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), but the Fourth
Crusade went awry, being diverted to Constantinople by Venice and a refugee prince.
The storming and sack of that city in 1204 permanently embittered Byzantine relations
with the West, but Innocent, although displeased, agreed to establish a Latin emperor and
patriarch there. A less traditional crusade was that against the Cathars, launched by
Innocent after the murder of one of his legates by a vassal of the count of Toulouse in
- At first, this campaign was led by Simon de Montfort; only after his death would
the Capetian monarchy take over, using the crusade to gain control of Languedoc.
A more adventurous policy was implemented in ecclesiastical affairs. Numerous
decretals expanded the role of Rome as the arbiter of justice for the clergy. New religious
orders, the more mobile mendicant friars, were favored as teachers of sound doctrine in
opposition to heresy. Dominic’s Order of Preachers (Dominicans) arose in southern
France to combat the Cathars; Francis’s Friars Minor (Franciscans), dedicated to poverty,
arose in urban Italy, which had its own problems with heresy. The secular clergy resented
these friars, whose reception of alms diminished the income of parish priests and whose
papal privileges undermined old lines of authority. Much of medieval ecclesiology was
evolved in disputes over the limits of such interventions in local sees and parishes.
Innocent’s last achievement was the great Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which was
intended to promote yet another crusade. The assembly legislated for all Christendom.
Orthodox doctrine was reaffirmed; preaching was encouraged, even as the proliferation
of new orders was discouraged. One canon compelled all believers to confess their sins to
their own priests at least once a year, during Lent or Eastertide, and to receive
communion, the Easter duty that has remained a part of canon law. These canons and
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