The Historians' History of the World 08

Celestine on his death-bed had endeavoured to nominate his successor; he had offered to resign the papacy if the cardinals would elect John of Colonna. But, even if consistent with right and with usage, the words of dying sovereigns rarely take effect. Of twenty-eight cardinals, five only were absent; of the rest the unanimous vote fell on the youngest of their body, on the cardinal (Giovanni) Lothario. Lothario was only thirty-seven years old, almost an unprecedented age for a pope.[102] The cardinals who proclaimed him saluted him by the name of Innocent, in testimony of his blameless life. In his inauguration sermon broke forth the character of the man; the unmeasured assertion of his dignity, protestations of humility which have a sound of pride. “Ye see what manner of servant that is whom the Lord hath set over his people; no other than the vicegerent of Christ, the successor of Peter. He stands in the midst between God and man; below God, above man; less than God, more than man. He judges all, is judged by none, for it is written, ‘I will judge.’ But he whom the pre-eminence of dignity exalts is lowered by his office of a servant, that so humility may be exalted, and pride abased; for God is against the high-minded, and to the lowly he shows mercy; and he who exalteth himself shall be abased. Every valley shall be lifted up, every hill and mountain laid low!”

The letters in which he announced his election to the king of France, and to the other realms of Christendom, blend a decent but exaggerated humility with the consciousness of power; Innocent’s confidence in himself transpires through his confidence in the divine protection.

The state of Christendom might have tempted a less ambitious prelate to extend and consolidate his supremacy. Wherever Innocent cast his eyes over Christendom and beyond the limits of Christendom, appeared disorder, contested thrones, sovereigns oppressing their subjects, subjects in arms against their sovereigns, the ruin of the Christian cause. In Italy the crown of Naples on the brows of an infant; the fairest provinces under the galling yoke of fierce German adventurers; the Lombard republics, Guelf or Ghibelline, at war within their walls, at war or in implacable animosity against each other; the empire, distracted by rival claimants for the throne, one vast scene of battle, intrigue, almost of anarchy; the tyrannical and dissolute Philip Augustus king of France, before long the tyrannical and feeble John of England.

The Byzantine Empire is tottering to its fall; the kingdom of Jerusalem confined almost to the city of Acre. Every realm seems to demand, or at least to invite, the interposition, the mediation, of the head of Christendom; in every land one party at least, or one portion of society, would welcome his interference in the last resort for refuge or for protection.

Nor did Innocent shrink from that which might have crushed a less energetic spirit to despair; from the Jordan to the Atlantic, from the Mediterranean to beyond the Baltic, his influence is felt and confessed; his vast correspondence shows at once the inexhaustible activity of his mind; he is involved simultaneously or successively in the vital interests of every kingdom in the western world.e

THE AUTOCRACY OF INNOCENT III

In order to secure Sicily for her son, the empress Constantia, pressed hard by parties, was obliged to accept the papal investment under the new conditions prescribed by the pontiff. After Constantia’s death (the 27th of November, 1198) Innocent ruled over all Sicily in the character of guardian. Still further the disputed imperial election, by which Germany was divided between Philip, duke of Swabia, and Otto, duke of Saxony, encouraged the pope to a larger extension of his power. Immediately after his accession, Innocent had already taken the oath of fealty to the imperial præfectus urbis; now he dislodged the vassals of the empire from the territory of Matilda, and established in Tuscany a civic league.

[1201-1216 A.D.]