Pope Innocent III (1160/61–1216): To Root Up and to Plant (review)

The intention of John C. Moore’s biography of Pope Innocent III, originally published by Brill in 2003, is to provide a chronological account of the life of one of the most influential and able of the medieval pontiffs. By abandoning the more usual thematic approach to Innocent’s pontificate, Moore wants us to better appreciate “how the events in one area of his experience may have influenced his reactions to events in others” (p. xiii).Moore also aims to place in their proper context bold or striking statements made by the pope, which historians have often misunderstood or caricatured by taking them outside of their original context. After a fine chapter on the early life of Lotario dei Conti of Segni, Moore guides us through Innocent’s pontificate, from his election in January 1198, when the silver cup was found in the sack of Benjamin (Innocent was just thirty-seven years old), to the pope’s death at Perugia in July 1216, where Jacques de Vitry saw in the cathedral the pope’s body, putrid and almost naked, robbed of its vestments. Many of the major political and ecclesiastical events of this decisive period in papal and European history are covered, and the passages on Philip Augustus, the Fourth Crusade, and the Fourth Lateran Council are especially well done. Moore’s major sources are the papal registers, most of which have survived; Innocent’s theological treatises; and his sermons, a subject on which the author possesses notable expertise. Although Moore’s heavy reliance on the registers is slightly problematic, given that it is difficult to identify Innocent’s voice in most letters (and given that most extant letters were not enregistered), Moore is probably correct, nevertheless, in considering them as an adequate if inexact reflection of the mind of the pontiff. His translations are carefully chosen and very accurate. One major strength of this book is Moore’s appreciation of the theological base to so much of Innocent’s thought, and the related emphasis on the pope’s profound biblical and liturgical knowledge. Another is the recognition that the great increase in the amount of papal government in this period came primarily as a response to bishops, monasteries, and laymen who sought the judgment of the Apostolic See, whether out of respect or as a strategy, and only secondarily because the papacy sought to increase its own power. The major weakness of Moore’s book lies in its major strength. The chronological approach brings with it structural problems that are not entirely overcome. Realistically, Moore would have needed more space to bring out the full range and complexity of the problems faced by Innocent at any one time. Nobody could but admire Moore’s balanced interpretation of Innocent’s actions both before and in the aftermath of the sack of Constantinople. Yet Innocent had plenty to occupy him in 1203–04, which is not fully covered here, most obviously in the business of the empire, where it is perhaps more difficult to view the pope sympathetically. When, as in 1203–04, Moore reverts to a thematic approach, it reminds us that such an approach has advantages in showing us the development of papal thought on a particular problem over a longer period and in allowing us to see more clearly the consistencies and inconsistencies in papal decision-making. In spite of its structural problems, Moore’s is the best biography of Innocent III, and this paperback edition should now make it available to the very students of history for whom it was intended.