under ban, and the country under an interdict, which remained in force till 1143. The last two years of his life were spent in bringing back to their allegiance various cities of Italy; and in measures of defence against the Romans, who invited Conrad III. to come and take possession of the city. Innocent died, 23rd September, 1143. His character commands little respect. His letters are numerous.—S. D.
INNOCENT III., born at Perugia about 1160, was the son of Count Thrasimund, and received at his baptism the name of Lothaire. After pursuing his studies at Rome, Paris, and Bologna, in which he attained to eminence both as a theologian and jurist, he filled various offices under Lucius III. and Urban III., was elected cardinal by Clement III., and raised to the papal chair, 8th January, 1198, under the name of Innocent III. The greater part of Italy was then subject to the Germans. As soon as he was consecrated, he began his efforts to restore the papal supremacy in Rome and the states of the church. He absolved the prefect of the city from his oath of fealty to the emperor; established a confederacy of the cities in Tuscany, through whose instrumentality he expelled the Germans to whom Henry IV. had given the territories belonging to the church; and took the Lombardic league under his protection. Before his baptism Henry's son was acknowledged as his father's successor in the empire. But Innocent was afraid of so many crowns on one head; and the princes of the empire thought the crown of Charles too heavy for the head of a child. When therefore Constantia, mother of Frederick II., was severely pressed by different parties, she was obliged to renounce all the prerogatives of the Sicilian monarchy, and to accept from Innocent the feudal sovereignty of the Sicilies, in order to secure something real for her son. After her death in 1198, Innocent, as the appointed guardian of her orphan child, conducted the government of the Two Sicilies with energy and prudence. Having recovered most of the cities and fortresses in Italy—which, as he alleged, had been rent from the patrimony of St. Peter—he turned his attention to German affairs. When Philip, duke of Swabia, and Otho IV. contended for the empire, he took the side of the latter and terrified Philip with denunciations. The murder of Philip at Bamberg by an offended vassal, put an end to the civil war in Germany; and his rival being universally acknowledged as emperor, and having satisfied all the demands of Innocent, was crowned by the latter at Rome in 1209. The two great factions which attached themselves to the church or the empire, to the side of Frederick II. or Otho IV., were afterwards called Ghibellines and Guelphs. As soon, however, as the emperor had attained his object, he began to take measures for the recovery of the imperial rights in Italy, By virtue of his oath he was bound to do so, since he had sworn to demand the restoration of all fiefs which had been taken from the empire. After taking the duchy of Spoleto, he attempted to wrest the inheritance of the young Frederick, Innocent's pupil. In 1211 Innocent excommunicated Otho with all his confederates and assistants. The latter not terrified, pressed into the papal states, subjugating Apulia, Calabria, and advancing as far as Tarentum. Archbishop Siegfried was therefore commanded, as the papal delegate, to go through Germany, proclaiming the papal ban, and enjoining every one neither to call Otho emperor, nor to render him obedience. Measures were taken for declaring him unworthy of the throne, and the young Frederick II. was substituted in his place. When Frederick appeared in Germany, supported by the pope and the king of France, most of the states declared in his favour; and he was therefore crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1215. Otho, forsaken by fortune, retired to his Brunswick possessions. Other emperors and kings also experienced the power of Innocent. Philip Augustus, king of France, had dismissed his wife Ingeburge, and married another. When he paid no heed to the admonitions of the pope, his country was put under an interdict in 1200, which was not removed till he received back his former wife in 1201. In the same way Innocent dealt with Alfonso IX., king of Leon, when he refused to divorce his wife. He also withheld his consent from a similar marriage of the king of Arragon, who, under the title of Peter II., was crowned at Rome, after rendering his dominions tributary to the church. John, duke of the Bulgarians, received his crown and sceptre from Rome. Sancho I. of Portugal, after resolutely denying it, finally acknowledged the validity of the document in which his father had made the kingdom tributary to St. Peter's successors. But the king of England, John Lackland, humbled himself the lowest. When Stephen Langton was elected and consecrated archbishop of Canterbury in 1207 by Innocent, the king opposed the election. Hence the pontiff excommunicated him, and put his realms under an interdict. Divesting him of all authority, he gave England and Ireland to Philip Augustus, king of France. Terrified and dreading a war, John made his dominions tributary to the pope in 1212. But the bishops and barons, remembering their ancient privileges, extorted Magna Charta from John, and subsequently restrained him. In vain did the pope hurl his anathemas against them; they bade defiance to his fulminations. Under Innocent, a patriarch of Constantinople was nominated in Rome, after the city had been plundered by an army of the crusaders; and Count Baldwin of Flanders appointed the first Latin emperor. Innocent had nothing to do with the treacherous proceedings in relation to Constantinople. The fourth Lateran council, held in November, 1215, was one of the most imposing. There the representatives of Christendom were gathered around Innocent to take measures for reconquering Palestine, exterminating heretics, and reforming the church. In it seventy canons were ratified, relating to matters of faith, jurisprudence, and discipline. All heretics were the subjects of unsparing persecution throughout his official life; for he sent legates intrusted with full powers to suppress heretics in the south of France, who went about barefooted, exhorted, argued, set up courts of trial, and employed all measures against the disobedient. When arguments failed, the obstinate were subjected to capital punishment. Such legates were called inquisitors; and from them that formidable tribunal for heretics called the inquisition took its rise. The Albigenses suffered greatly from this class. At Toulouse a kind of inquisitorial tribunal was erected. Nothing could exceed the fierce zeal of these rough fanatics. The Lateran council was equally severe against heathens. It also forbade Jews to have any intercourse with christians, while they and Saracens were commanded to wear a peculiar dress. The most important regulation of the council was that which confirmed the two new orders of dominicans and franciscans. In short papal authority celebrated its jubilee at this council, when Innocent could compare himself to the sun, and royalty to the moon borrowing its light from the greater luminary. From the time of the council till his death. Innocent longed to exercise the duties of the pastoral office, and preached often. His discourses were figurative and in the style of the Old Testament. He died on the 16th of July, 1216. Innocent was learned according to his age, laborious, earnest, energetic, but cruel, avaricious, arrogant. Though rich he did not indulge in luxury, but subordinated wealth to the great ruling passion of his nature, love of power. His wealth was not hoarded up in the spirit of a miser, but freely spent on behalf of the poor and the crusades. It must also be stated that he was a father to widows and orphans, a steady friend, and a frequent peacemaker between princes and their subjects. He certainly contributed more than all other popes to enlarge the dominion of the Roman see. But however great his merits he was not canonized. Besides his letters, Innocent wrote a number of tracts and discourses chiefly practical; a commentary on the seven penitential psalms; three books on contempt of the world; and six books on the mysteries of the mass. The epistles in nineteen books were republished by Baluze, in 2 vols. fol., Paris, 1682. His works first appeared in 1552 and 1575 at Cologne.—S. D.
INNOCENT IV. (Sinibaldo di Fiesco), was born of noble parentage at Genoa. After the death of Cœlestine IV., there were tedious dissensions among the cardinals respecting the choice of a successor. At length they fixed upon Cardinal Fiesco, June 24, 1243, who took the name of Innocent IV. He was regarded as the best jurist of his day. When cardinal he had been favourable to Frederick II. Innocent, however, soon became a deadly enemy to the emperor. By the assistance of the Genoese, he escaped from Italy in 1244 to Lyons, where he summoned a general council, alleging that he wished to remove abuses that had crept into the church, to procure speedy help for the christians in the East, and settle the dispute between the church and empire. But the emperor, aware of the pope's purposes, wrote to all christian princes, setting forth the real designs of Innocent, and promising to fit out a large crusading army, if the pope freed him from ban, and induced the rebels in Lombardy to lay down their arms. At the council's third session in 1245, all the curses of the church were flung against the emperor as a heretic and
