The Deeds of Pope Innocent III

[Family, Education, Election]

[Family, Education, Election] I. Pope Innocent III, the son of Transmundus, from the family of the counts of Segni, and of Clarina, the daughter of a noble Roman line, was a man of penetrating mind and tenacious memory, learned in Divine and secular literature, eloquent in both the vernacular and in Latin, skilled in chant and psalmody. He was of medium stature and proper bearing, moderate in his views on wealth, but more generous in almsgiving and in his table. He was inclined to be more careful in other matters, unless there was a real need. He was hard on rebels and the contumacious, but kind towards the humble and devout. He was strong and firm, magnanimous and wise, a defender of the faith, a foe of heresy, strict in justice, but compassionate in mercy, humble in good times and patient in bad, somewhat impatient by nature but easily forgiving.1 II. He sweated out his studies first in Rome, and then in Paris, finally at Bologna, and he surpassed his contemporaries both in philosophy and theology, as his opuscula, which he drafted and dictated at various times, demonstrate. For he authored, before his pontificate, books On the Misery of the Human Condition, On Mysteries of the Mass, and On the Fourfold Types of Marriages. After he became pope, he [com1 . I would like to thank John Moore for sending me a copy of his translation of this passage, which I found very helpful. The use of the past tense raises a question about the dating of this passage, suggesting that it may have been written at a later date. Since we have no information about the composition of the work, we can only conjecture regarding this matter. This translation follows David Gress-Wright, The ‘Gesta Innocentii III’: Text, Introduction, and Commentary (Ph.D. diss., Bryn Mawr College , 1981), in his edition based on the manuscripts. I have also used Vat. Lat. 12111 in conjunction with Gress-Wright. I should note that he now prefers to be known as David Wright. 3 posed] books of sermons, and Notes on the Seven Psalms, letters, regesta [of his letters], and decretals, which clearly show how expert he was in both Divine and human law.2 III. Pope Gregory VIII, of holy memory, ordained him to the subdeaconate , and Pope Clement III promoted him to cardinal deacon at the age of twenty-nine.3 He appointed him to the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, of which Clement himself had been cardinal deacon. He advanced both in age and probity before God and men to such a degree that everyone anticipated and hoped for his advancement [Lk 2:52]. IV. Within two years after he was raised to the cardinalate, with his own money he restored the afore-mentioned church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, which was in a sorry condition and in such ruins that more crypt than basilica could be seen, building up the walls and putting on a new roof, constructing a new altar on new steps, and making a new enclosure before the choir. Immediately after he was raised to the apex of the apostolate, he ordered a colonnaded porch to be built at the front of the same church from the wealth God had brought to him as cardinal. Many people wondered where he had found so much money in so short a time since he had refused to sully his hands with filthy lucre, not accepting any donation or promise until the business before him was terminated. He didn’t exact anything from anyone, always proceeding on the royal road, neither deviating to right or left, conversing with his brethren without quarreling, not joining any faction. 4 The Deeds of Pope Innocent III 2. The works of Innocent III are found in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vols. 214–17. The Misery of the Human Condition has been edited as Lotharius Cardinalis De Miseria Humane Conditionis (Lucca: Biblioteca scriptorum latinorum mediae et recentioris aetatis, 1955) and De miseria conditionis humane, ed. and trans. Robert E. Lewis (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980). The other treatises are found in Migne, vol. 217. There is no critical edition of the sermons. Regarding the inclusion here of this notice of his “Notes on the Seven Psalms,” composed near the end of his pontificate , see GW, 45*, and Barone, “Gesta,” 10. It is an interpolation. 3. Pope Gregory VIII, Albert of Morra, reigned from October 21, 1187, to December 17, 1187...