Pope Innocent II

Gregorio Papareschi came from a Roman family,[1] probably of the rione Trastevere. Formerly a Cluniac monk,[2] he was made cardinal deacon of Sant'Angelo in 1116 by Pope Paschal II.[3] Gregorio was selected by Pope Callixtus II for various important and difficult missions, such as the one to Worms for the conclusion of the Concordat of Worms, the peace accord made with Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1122,[3] and also the one that made peace with King Louis VI of France in 1123. In 1124, he became a close advisor to Pope Honorius II.[3]

On the evening of 13 February 1130, Pope Honorius II died,[4] Gregorio was hastily elected as Pope Innocent II by a commission of six cardinals led by papal chancellor Haimeric.[5] He was consecrated on 14 February, the day after Honorius' death.[5] The other cardinals announced that Innocent had not been canonically elected and chose Anacletus II, a Roman whose family were the enemy of Haimeric's supporters, the Frangipani.[6] Anacletus' mixed group of supporters were powerful enough to take control of Rome while Innocent was forced to flee north.[6]

Anacletus had control of Rome, so Innocent II took ship for Pisa, and thence sailed by way of Genoa to France, where the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux readily secured his cordial recognition by the clergy and the court.[7][8] In October of 1130, he was duly acknowledged by King Lothair III of Germany and his bishops at the synod of Würzburg.[9][10] In January 1131, he had also a favourable interview with Henry I of England at Chartres.[11] In August 1132 Lothar III undertook an expedition to Italy to set aside Anacletus as antipope and be crowned by Innocent. Anacletus and his supporters being in secure control of St. Peter's Basilica, the coronation ultimately took place in the Lateran Basilica (4 June 1133), but otherwise the expedition proved abortive. Innocent II invested Lothair as emperor and the territories belonging to Matilda of Tuscany in return for an annuity of 100 pounds of silver paid to the pope.[12]

After Lothar's hasty departure from Rome, Innocent fled to Pisa.[13] In May 1135, Innocent convened the council of Pisa, which was attended by over one hundred clerics and abbots.[14] Innocent II had the council declare antipope Anacletus II and his supporters excommunicated.[14]

The second expedition by Lothar III in 1136 was no more decisive in its results, and the protracted struggle between the rival pontiffs was terminated only by the death of Anacletus II on 25 January 1138.

In March 1139, in the Omne Datum Optimum, Innocent II declared that the Knights Templar—a religious and military organization then twenty-one years old—should in the future be answerable only to the papacy.[15]

In 1134, Innocent elevated as cardinal-nephew his nephew, Gregorio Papareschi. He did the same for his brother Pietro Papareschi, whom he made cardinal in 1142. Another nephew, Cinthio Capellus (died 1182), was also a cardinal, raised to the cardinalate in 1158, after Innocent's death.[22]

Aside from the complete rebuilding of the ancient church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which boldly features Ionic capitals from former colonnades in the Baths of Caracalla and other richly detailed spolia from Roman monuments,[23] the remaining years of Innocent's life were almost as barren of permanent political results as the first had been. In the Lateran palace, he had a portrait painted depicting Lothar's oath to preserve the privileges of the city of Rome.[24] Innocent's efforts to undo the mischief wrought in Rome by the long schism were almost entirely neutralized by a quarrel with his erstwhile supporter, Louis VII of France over the candidate for archbishop of Bourges, in the course of which that kingdom was laid under an interdict to press for the papal candidate,[25] and by a struggle with the town of Tivoli in which he became involved. As a result, Roman factions that wished Tivoli annihilated took up arms against Innocent.

In 1143, as the pope lay dying, the Commune of Rome, to resist papal power, began deliberations that officially reinstated the Roman Senate the following year.[26] The pope was interred in a porphyry sarcophagus that contemporary tradition asserted had been the Emperor Hadrian's.

• Bull of Gniezno
• List of popes
• Cardinals created by Innocent II

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• Bagni, Giampiero (2020). "A multidisciplinary approach to the production of wine on Templar estates: The Bologna commandery". In Morton, Nicholas (ed.). The Military Orders Volume VII: Piety, Pugnacity and Property. Routledge.
• Clark, Anne L. (2016). Elisabeth of Schonau: A Twelfth-Century Visionary. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Cotts, John D. (2012). Europe's Long Twelfth Century: Order, Anxiety and Adaptation, 1095-1229. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Duggan, Anne J., ed. (2000). The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1162-1170: Letters. Vol. I: 1-175. Clarendon Press.
• Duggan, Anne J. (2016). "Jura sua unicuique tribuat: Innocent II and the advance of the learned laws". In Doran, John; Smith, Damian J. (eds.). Pope Innocent II (1130-43), The World vs The City. Routledge. pp. 272–310.
• Houben, Hubert (2002). Roger II of Sicily: Ruler between East and West. Translated by Loud, Graham A.; Milburn, Diane. Cambridge University Press.
• Kinney, Dale (1986). "Spolia from the Baths of Caracalla in Sta. Maria in Trastevere". The Art Bulletin. 68.3 (September) (3): 379–397. doi:10.1080/00043079.1986.10788359.
• Lees, Jay Terry (1998). Anselm of Havelberg: Deeds Into Words in the Twelfth Century. Brill.
• Montaubin, Pascal (2016). "Innocent II and Capetian France". In Smith, Damian J.; Doran, John (eds.). Pope Innocent II (1130-43): The World Vs the City. Routledge. pp. 107–151.
• Morris, Colin (1989). The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford History of the Christian Church). Clarendon Press.
• Pacaut, Marcel (2002). "Innocent II". In Levillain, Philippe (ed.). The Papacy: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 2: Gaius-Proxies. Routledge. pp. 783–785.
• Robinson, I.S. (1990). The Papacy, 1073-1198. Cambridge University Press.
• Robinson, I.S. (1995). "The Papacy, 1122-1198". In Luscombe, David; Riley-Smith, Jonathan (eds.). The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. 4, C.1024–c.1198, Part 2. Cambridge University Press.
• Rogers, Randall (1997). Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century. Clarendon Press.
• Schroeder, H. J. (1937). Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation and Commentary. B. Herder.
• Schwaiger, Georg (2002). "Honorius II". In Levillain, Philippe (ed.). The Papacy: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 2: Gaius-Proxies. Routledge. pp. 732–733.
• Somerville, Robert (1970). "The Council of Pisa, 1135: A Re-Examination of the Evidence for the Canons". Speculum. The University of Chicago Press. 45, No. 1 (Jan.) (1): 98–114. doi:10.2307/2855987. JSTOR 2855987. S2CID 162871829.
• Truax, Jean (2017). Aelred the Peacemaker: The Public Life of a Cistercian Abbot. Liturgical Press.
• Wheeler, Bonnie; McLaughlin, Mary Martin, eds. (2009). The Letters of Heloise and Abelard: A Translation of Their Collected Correspondence and Related Writings. Palgrave Macmillan.

• Tenth Ecumenical Council: Lateran II 1139. Internet Medieval Source Book. 1 November 1996. Retrieved 5 May 2007.