Fulk of Neuilly, Innocent III, and the Preaching of the Fourth Crusade

This article offers a reassessment of Fulk of Neuilly, the Fourth Crusade’s most prominent preacher. Traditionally, Fulk has been treated as a colorful, yet ultimately unimportant, participant in the formative period of the crusade. This article suggests, however, that Fulk’s activities were an important component in Innocent III’s crusade plans. By looking at Fulk’s activities within the context of Innocent III’s conceptions of reform and crusade, Fulk is revealed to be not the uncontrollable enthusiast so often depicted by historians, but rather a dependable proponent of the papal vision, a vision which viewed the need for moral reform and the need to succor the Holy Land as two aspects of the same imperative. Furthermore, Fulk’s incorporation into the legation of Peter Capuano was an early example of what would become a common papal strategy in the thirteenth century: the use of popular preachers under apostolic authorization to advance specific papal programs. In reconstructing the activities and importance of Fulk of Neuilly, this article sheds light on both the formative period of the Fourth Crusade and on the idea of crusade itself.