378 Innocent IV, Pope
churches to support a teacher charged with improving
the education of the clergy. Other decrees forbade the
foundation of any new religious orders, required episco-
pal supervision and visitation of monasteries, tried to
eliminate practices by which ecclesiastical positions
became hereditary, sought to curtail abuses in the trade
in RELICSand the superstitions surrounding them, and
aimed in numerous other regulations to promote a gen-
eral improvement in the quality of religious life and the
practices of the church.
Innocent suddenly died on July 16, 1216, not long
after the close of his important council. The council’s
decrees influenced the life and institutions of the church
for centuries.
Further reading:Lothario dei Segni, On the Misery of
the Human Condition,trans. Margaret Mary Dietz (Indi-
anapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969); Selected Letters of Pope
Innocent III Concerning England (1198–1216),trans, and
ed. Christopher R. Cheney and W. H. Semple (London:
Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953); Norman P. Tanner, ed.,
“Lateran IV, 1215” in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils,
Vol. 1, Nicaea I to Lateran V(Washington, D.C.: George-
town University Press, 1990), 227–71; Christopher R.
Cheney, Pope Innocent III and England(Stuttgart: Hierse-
mann, 1976); Jane Sayers, Innocent III: Leader of Europe,
1198–1216(New York: Longman, 1994); James M. Pow-
ell, ed., Innocent III: Vicar of Christ or Lord of the World?,
2d expanded ed. (1963; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Uni-
versity of America Press, 1994).
Innocent IV, Pope(Sinibaldo de’ Fieschi) (1190/
1200–1254)canonist, ardent advocate of expansion of
papal power
Sinibaldo de’ Fieschi was a member of a noble Ligurian
family from near GENOA. Born between 1190 and 1200,
he studied at Parma and then the University of BOLOGNA;
a career as a canonist followed. He moved up the hierar-
chy of the church’s administrative machine; after 1226 as
jurist at the Roman Curia, he was head of the pontifical
chancery.
Appointed as a CARDINALin 1227, he was important
in the regime of GREGORYIX, with whom he shared a
similar canonistic training and a strong antagonism
against the emperor FREDERICKII. He was rector of the
march of Ancona in the PAPALSTATESfrom 1234 to 1239.
After his election as pope on June 25, 1243, as Innocent
IV, he left ITA LYfor LYON, where he called a COUNCILthat
lasted from June to July 1245. At that meeting, he tried to
reunify the Roman and Eastern Churches and began a
policy of complete and unrelenting opposition to Freder-
ick II, even condemning him as the ANTICHRIST.
Innocent IV tried to enrich and expand the doctrinal
and legal apparatus and justification of papal power. In
his writings on canon law, he developed the doctrine of
the fullness and absoluteness of both the spiritual and the
temporal power of the office of pope. In his thinking, the
pope held without restriction the power of Christ as his
vicar. He readily claimed the capacity to depose monarchs
and release vassals from oath of allegiance. Innocent died
at NAPLESon December 7, 1254.
See alsoINNOCENTIII, POPE.
Further reading: J. A. Watt, The Theory of Papal
Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century: The Contribution of
the Canonists (New York: Fordham University Press,
1965); Christopher Dawson, Mission to Asia (1955;
reprint, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980); Igor
de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans(London:
Faber and Faber, 1971).inns and taverns Accommodations for travelers in the
Middle Ages covered a wide range of possibilities. Inns
were only one of these and often were tied to taverns. It
was not until the 11th and 12th centuries that commercial
inns began to regain the importance they had had in the
classical era. With the economic revival of the central
Middle Ages, there was once again a demand for safe tem-
porary residences along the road system of Europe.
In the early Middle Ages, religious houses provided
hospitality for wayfarers and especially pilgrims. From
the 11th century on, European roads were in use by a
growing number of merchants, ecclesiastical and secular
officials on business, pilgrims, kings, nobles, and clerics.
A wider variety of accommodations developed to serve
this new traveling public. To cover the expansion of
travel connected with the CRUSADESand PILGRIMAGES,
hospices, usually built and staffed by members of reli-
gious orders, grew up along pilgrimage routes, especially
in mountainous, unsavory, or isolated areas. They were
supported by gifts from travelers grateful for the simple
shelter they provided.
The increasing number of MERCHANTSinvolved in
international and long-distance commerce in the 12th
century, especially from the great Italian city-states such
as PISA,GENOA, and VENICE, needed not only shops
where they traded but also secure warehouses for their
goods and adequate lodging for them and their
entourage. Such all-purpose establishments had flour-
ished in the Muslim world; from the 13th century they
developed in Europe.PROLIFERATION OF INNS
From the time of this commercial revolution in the 13th
century, inns soon overshadowed other forms of accom-
modation, becoming more numerous and prosperous.
ITA LY and southern FRANCEboasted large networks of
inns. Like taverns, inns were built in cities, near the main
gates; concentration also developed on main roads and
near university towns with their populations of itinerant
students and masters. They were of all sizes, with prices
reflected in the amenities they offered, from merely cheap