The Deeds of Pope Innocent III

[Spiritual Concerns]

since, on account of the urgent necessity in the kingdom, we have come down in person, having set aside for the most part the rest of the world’s business for this one matter only in order, namely, to reform it in peace and justice. By the grace of God, a good beginning has been made and we intend to make further progress in order to reach the best end. Wherefore, we admonish and exhort and command Your Devotion in the Lord by Apostolic letters that just as you hold the Divine, Apostolic, and Royal favor dear, you should receive joyfully and observe effectively the ordinance which we have made on assistance and support of the king, the defense and peace of the kingdom, according to the example of the other counts, barons, and also the cities. Just as this ordinance is expressly contained in the capitulary, sealed with our bull, you should obey the Master Captains, who have been appointed for its execution by our command. If, God forbid , someone should presume to break it, let him incur the penalty established in the ordinance itself, and we will add the weight of our hands against him both spiritually and temporally. Because we cannot, on account of the heat of the summer, personally go to Apulia at present, we have appointed vicars to carry out this business in the persons of our beloved son, Gregory, cardinal deacon of St. Theodore, legate of the Apostolic See, and we have ordered our beloved son, O.,66 our acolyte, whom we have sent from our personal retinue to join him. [Spiritual Concerns] XLI. Although we have digressed here into Innocent’s conduct of temporal affairs, we return to the beginning of his pontificate, in order to pursue his spiritual activities.67 Thus, among all the pestilences, he hated venality the most, and he pondered how he could extirpate it from the Roman Church. He immediately, therefore, made an edict [Spiritual Concerns] 55 66. Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, 1:301 (3488), August 16, 1208. Gregory of G(u)algano was named cardinal deacon of St. Theodore in 1206. See Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216, 151–53. O., the acolyte of the pope, is not otherwise identified. 67. Here again the author draws a contrast between Innocent’s temporal and spiritual concerns, suggesting how much this issue weighed on the members of the papal curia. that no official of his curia, save for scribes and those who sealed bulls, should exact anything. For them he established a fixed fee and ordered strictly that each individual should exercise his office free of charge, that he should receive graciously anything that anyone freely gave him. He therefore ordered the doorkeepers removed from the chambers of the notaries so that there would be free access to them. Moreover, within the sacred Lateran Palace, there was a money changers’ table in the passage near the cistern of the kitchen on which daily were placed gold and silver vessels, a diversity of moneys, and many treasures for sale or purchase. The pope himself, burning with zeal, turned over the tables of the money changers and ordered them removed completely from the palace [Mt 21:12–13]. Three times each week he publicly celebrated a solemn consistory—this practice had fallen into disuse until now—and in it he listened to the complaints of individuals, examined minor cases through others, but heard major cases himself so subtly and prudently that everyone admired his cleverness and prudence. Many quite learned men and legal experts frequented the Roman Church simply to hear him. They learned more in his consistories than they had learned in the schools, especially when they listened to the opinions he promulgated, because he made allegations in such subtle and efficacious ways that each party hoped to win, because each heard him supporting his case, and no lawyer so expert appeared before him who was not very much afraid of his opposing statements.68 Moreover, he was so just in deciding cases that he never received appeals, never turned from the royal road, and he handed down decisions with much maturity after due deliberation. XLII. For this reason, so many and such important cases began to be brought for his hearing from the whole world that he decided a larger number of cases in his time than had ever earlier been decided 56 The Deeds of Pope Innocent III 68. The author’s appreciation of Innocent’s...