Lectures for A Medieval Survey
Lynn H. Nelson
INNOCENT III
1196-1216
Innocent III was perhaps the greatest medieval pope but he is difficult to evaluate. Did he save
the church or set the stage for its decline? He faced many challenges, and managed to meet them all, but at considerable long-term cost to the church.
- Popular heresies
- 1. Problem
The church was unable to solve the social and economic problems caused by the
growth of commerce and manufacture. The church was unable to operate
effectively in the towns, and it lacked dedicated and educated clergy. Social
discontent was expressed in popular heresies such as the Albigensians and
Waldensians. One must remember how dangerous heretics were considered to
be.
- 2. Innocent's solution
When sending missionaries against the dissidents failed, Innocent called a
crusade in which the northern French conquered southern France.
When the dissidents went underground, Fnnocent devised the inquisition.
- 3. When moral suasion failed, Fnnocent used force.
- The hammer and anvil
- 1. Problem:
The church feared a single power controlling southern Italy and Germany.
Emperor Henry VI (+ 1197) had accomplished this for the Hohenstaufen
family.
- 2. Innocent's solution
He encouraged a civil war in Germany over the succession and forged an
alliance with England to gain his candidate victory. When his man,Otto
of Brunswick, turned against him, he forged another alliance with France to
defeat Otto.
- 3. Innocent dragged the church into power politics and used warfare to gain
his political ends.
- Decline of the crusades
- 1. The problem
Innocent wanted a crusade to restore a sense of church leadership, but
crusades had become too expensive, western leaders were too involved in
their own affairs, and the Muslims had become too strong for an easy
victory.
- 2. Innocent'S solution
Innocent was willing to support any crusading effort and to call crusades to
gain his ends: the Albigensian Crusade, the parody of the Children's Crusade,
Walter of Brienne's crusade in southern Italy,the Teutonic Knights in
easternGermany, and the under-financed Fourth Crusade that conquered
Christian Constantinople.
3. Innocent used crusades to gain his ends, but cheapened the crusading ideal
by making it a political tool.
- Church corruption
- 1. The problem
The church had not been able to meet the needs of the poor and ill; it had
used church revenues for political ends; clergy were underpaid, uneducated,
and not very effective; the church could not rise to the expectations of the
new middle class, who were not satisfied with only words but expected
performance.
- 2. Innocent's solution
The fourth lateran council.
- Asserted church authority by extending ecclesiastical protection to the
Jews.
- Tried to improve the level of the clergy by combatting simony and
enforcing celibacy (but not improving financing or education).
- Established the inquisition to strengthen the position of church doctrine
and eliminate toleration in this matter.
- Recognized the Dominicans and Franciscans.
- 3. Innocent's most successful area, except that his reforms of the clergy
were not directed at causes, and the Inquisition eventually became used by
secular authorities as a thought police.
- 4. Innocent was successful at least on the surface. He had guided the church
through its crisis, but at a cost. The church had now become rigid and was no
longer able to accommodate differences of opinion and approach.It could no
longer aspire to be the "moral arbiter of European affairs" because its
moral authority was weakened by its entry into the political arena.
It did not seem like that at the time, however.The Dominicans formed a new
and educated force in the church, and the Franciscans provided society with a
joyous and wild sense of spirituality that met the needs of the time.There
was a resurgence of religious feeling and the Gothic Age had begun.
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