INNOCENT I., pope from 402 to 417, was, according to his biographer in the Liber Pontificalis, the son of a man called Innocent of Albano; but, according to the more trustworthy Jerome, his father was Pope Anastasius I., whom he was called by the unanimous voice of the clergy and laity to succeed. It was during his papacy that the siege of Rome by Alaric (408) took place, when, according to a doubtful anecdote of Zosimus, the ravages of plague and famine were so frightful, and divine help seemed so far off, that papal permission was granted to sacrifice and pray to the heathen deities; the pope happened, however, to be absent from the city on a mission to Honorius at Ravenna at the time of the sack in 410. He lost no opportunity of maintaining and extending the authority of the Roman see as the ultimate resort for the settlement of all disputes; and his still extant communications to Victricius of Rouen, Exuperius of Toulouse, Alexander of Antioch, and others, as well as his action on the appeal made to him by Chrysostom against Theophilus of Alexandria, show that opportunities of the kind were numerous and varied. He took a decided view on the Pelagian controversy, confirming the decisions of the synod of the province of proconsular Africa held in Carthage in 416, which had been sent to him, and also writing in the same year in a similar sense to the fathers of the Numidian synod of Mileve who, Augustine being one of their number, had addressed him. Among his letters are one to Jerome and another to John, bishop of Jerusalem, regarding annoyances to which the first-named had been subjected by the Pelagians at Bethlehem. He died March 12, 417, and in the Romish Church is commemorated as a confessor along with Saints Nazarius, Celsus, and Victor, martyrs, on July 28. His ...

INNOCENT II., pope from 1130 to 1143, whose family name was Paparesci, his own baptismal name being Gregory, was probably one of the clergy in personal attendance on the antipope Clement III. (Guibert of Ravenna). By Paschal II. he was created cardinal-deacon. In this capacity he accompanied Pope Gelasius II. when driven into France; and by Calixtus II. he was employed on various important missions, such as on that to Worms for concluding the peace concordat with the emperor in 1122, and on that to France in 1123. On February 14, 1130, he was hurriedly chosen to succeed Honorius II.; soon afterwards an opposition asserted itself which issued in the counter-election of Pietro Pierleoni as Pope Anacletus II. Unable to maintain his position in Rome, Innocent took ship for Pisa, and thence sailed by Genoa to France, where the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux readily secured his cordial recognition by the clergy and the court; in October of the same year he was duly acknowledged by Lothaire of Germany and his bishops at the synod of Würzburg. In January 1131 he had also a favourable interview with Henry II. of England; and in August 1132 Lothaire undertook an expedition to Italy for the double purpose of being crowned by the pope, and of setting aside the antipope. The coronation ultimately took place in the Lateran church (June 4,1133), but otherwise the expedition proved abortive. A second expedition by Lothaire in 1136 was not more decisive in its results, and the protracted struggle between the rival pontiffs was terminated only by the death of Anacletus on January 25, 1138. By the Lateran council of 1139, at which Roger of Sicily, Innocent’s most uncompromising foe, was excommunicated, peace was at last restored to the church. The remaining years of this pope’s ...

INNOCENT III., pope from 1198 to 1216, by far the most remarkable of the popes who have reigned under this name, and, if Gregory VII. is excepted, perhaps the greatest of all who have occupied the see of St Peter, was born at Anagni about 1160. His father, Count Trasimundo of Segni, was a member of the famous house of Conti, from which nine popes, including Gregory IX., Alexander IV., and Innocent XIII., have sprung; his mother, Claricia, belonged to the noble Roman family of Scotti. His own baptismal name was Lothario. After receiving the rudiments of his education in Rome, he studied theology under Peter of Corbe il at Paris, and canon law at Bologna. On his return to Rome in 1181 he became a canon of St Peter’s; and through family influence, combined with the increasing evidence he gave of remarkable ability, his subsequent promotion was rapid. By Gregory VIII. ho was appointed one of the subdeacons, and in 1190 (while barely thirty) he was, at the instance of his maternal uncle Clement III., made cardinal-deacon of St Sergius and St Bacchus. On the death of Clement (1191), who was succeeded by Celestine III., a member of the rival house of Orsini, Cardinal Lothario was but little employed in church affairs; the unsought leisure which he now possessed he devoted to the composition of three works, two of which have come down to our times. Of these the most remarkable by far is that entitled De Contemptu Mundi, sive de Miseria Humanae Conditionis, written “in not inelegant Latin,” full of the best learning of that age, and everywhere manifesting the moral depth, earnestness, and insight, if also the somewhat gloomy and severe temperament, of its author. On the death of Celestine III. (January 8,1198), Lothario was without a day’s delay unanimously chosen to ...

INNOCENT IV., Sinibaldo de Fieschi, pope from 1243 to 1254, belonged to one of the first families of Genoa, and, educated at Parma and Bologna, passed for one of the best canonists of his time. He had for his immediate predecessor Celestine IV., who, however, was pope for eighteen days only, and therefore the events of Innocent’s pontificate practically link themselves on to those of the reign of Gregory IX. It was on occasion of Innocent’s election (June 28,1243) that Frederick II. is said to have remarked that he had lost the friendship of a cardinal and gained the enmity of a pope; the letter which he wrote, however, expressed in respectful terms the hope that an amicable settlement of the differences between the empire and the papal see might be reached. The negotiation which shortly afterwards began with this object speedily proved abortive, Frederick being unable to make the absolute submission to the pope’s demands which was required of him. Finding his position in Rome insecure, Innocent secretly withdrew in the summer of 1244 to Genoa, and thence to Lyons, where he summoned a general council which met in 1245 and deposed Frederick. The agitation caused by this act throughout Europe terminated only with Frederick’s death in 1250, which permitted the pope to return, first to Perugia, and afterwards in 1253 to Rome. The remainder of his life was largely devoted to schemes for compassing the overthrow of Manfred, the natural son of Frederick II., whom the towns and the nobility had for the most part received as his father’s successor. It was on a sick bed at Naples that Innocent heard of Manfred’s victory at Foggia, and the tidings are said to have precipitated his death (December 7, 1254). His learning gave to the world an Apparatus in quinque libros ...

INNOCENT IX. succeeded Gregory XIV. on October 29,1591, and died on December 30 of the same year. His pontificate was unimportant. Clement VIII. was his successor.

INNOCENT V., pope from January 20 to June 22,1276, was a native of Tarantasia in Burgundy, where he was born in 1225. In early life he joined the Dominican order, in which he acquired great fame as a preacher. The only noteworthy feature of his brief and uneventful pontificate was the practical form assumed by his desire for union with the Eastern Church. He was proceeding to send legates to the Greek emperor in connexion with the recent decisions of the council of Lyons when he died. He was the author of several works in philosophy, theology, and canon law, including commentaries on the Pauline epistles and on the Sentences of Peter of Lombardy, and is sometimes referred to as “famosissimus doctor.” His predecessor was Gregory X., and he was succeeded by Hadrian V.

INNOCENT VI., Stephen Aubert, pope at Avignon from 1352 to 1362, the successor of Clement VI., was a native of the diocese of Limoges, and, after having taught civil law at Toulouse, became bishop successively of Noyon and of Clermont. In 1342 he was raised to the dignity of cardinal. On the death of Clement VI., after the cardinals had each bound himself by a solemn agreement as to a particular line of policy should he be elected, Aubert was chosen (December 18, 1352); one of the first acts of his pontificate was to declare the paction to have been illegal and null. His subsequent policy compares favourably with that of the other Avignon popes. He brought about many needed reforms in the administration of church affairs, and by his legate, Cardinal Albornoz, who was accompanied by Rienzi, he sought to restore order in Rome, where in 1355 Charles IV. was with his permission crowned, after having previously come under an oath that he would quit the city on the day of the ceremony. It was largely through the exertions of Innocent that the peace of Bretigny (1360) between France and England was brought about. During this pontificate also John Palaeologus offered to submit the Greek Church to the Roman see on condition of assistance being rendered him against John Cantacuzenus. The resources at the disposal of the pope, however, were all required for exigencies nearer home, and the offer was declined. Innocent was a liberal patron of letters, and, if the extreme severity of his measures against the Fraticelli be kept out of account, had a deservedly high reputation for justice and mercy. He died September 12, 1362, and his successor was Urban V.

INNOCENT VII., Cosimo de Migliorati, pope from 1404 to 1406, was a native of Solmona in the Abruzzi, and early distinguished himself by his learning both in civil and in canon law. By Urban VI. he was called to the papal court, and entrusted with various responsible offices, being finally promoted to the archbishopric of Ravenna, and afterwards to the bishopric of Bologna. Boniface IX. made him cardinal, and employed him as legate in several delicate and important missions. On the death of Boniface, Migliorati was unanimously chosen (October 17, 1404) to succeed him, after each of the cardinals had bound himself by a solemn obligation to employ all lawful means for the restoration of the church’s unity in the event of his election, and even to resign the papal dignity should that be considered necessary to this end. The election was resisted at Rome by the Ghibelline party, but peace was maintained by the aid of Ladislaus of Naples, who thus laid Innocent under embarrassing obligations, from which he freed himself at the earliest possible moment. The assassination of some leading members of the city party by Ludovico Migliorati (a nephew of Innocent) and his friends compelled the pope to take refuge, in August 1405, at Viterbo, whence he did not return until January of the following year. These troubles furnished him with a pretext, of which he was not unwilling to avail himself, for postponing the meeting of a general council which was urged by Charles of France, the university of Paris, Rupert of Germany, and John of Castile, as the only means of healing the schism which had prevailed so long. It is hardly necessary to say that he showed no favour to the proposal that he as well as the antipope Benedict XIII. should resign in the interests of peace. He died somewhat ...

INNOCENT VIII., Giovanni Battista Cibo, pope from 1484 to 1492, was born at Genoa (1432), and was the son of a man of senatorial rank. His early years were spent at the Neapolitan court, and subsequently he went to Padua and Rome for his education. In the latter city the influence of his friends procured for him, from Paul II., the bishopric of Savona, and in 1473 he was made cardinal by Sixtus IV., whom he succeeded on August 29, 1484. Shortly after his coronation he addressed a fruitless summons to Christendom to unite in a crusade against the infidels; the amount of his own zeal may in some degree be estimated from the fact that in 1489, in consideration of a yearly sum of 40,000 ducats and a gift of the spearhead which had pierced the Saviour’s side, he consented to favour the sultan Bajazet II. by detaining his fugitive brother in close confinement in the Vatican. In I486 Henry VII. of England was declared to be the lawful holder of the English crown by the threefold right of conquest, inheritance, and popular choice. Innocent, in his bull “Summis desiderantes” (5th December 1484), instigated very severe measures against magicians and witches in Germany; the principles enunciated by him were afterwards embodied in the Malleus maleficarum (1487). He it was also who in 1487 appointed Torquemada to be grand inquisitor of Spain; he also urged a crusade against the Waldensians, offering plenary indulgence to all who should engage in it. In 1486 he prohibited, on pain of severe ecclesiastical censures, the reading of the nine hundred propositions of Pico Mirandola. An important event of his pontificate was the fall of Granada (January 1492), which was celebrated in the Vatican with great rejoicings. He died July 25, 1492, leaving behind him numerous children ...

INNOCENT X., Giovanni Battista Pamphili, pope from 1644 to 1655, was born at Rome in 1574, attained the dignity of cardinal in 1629, and through French influence Was chosen to succeed Urban VIII. on September 15,1644. Throughout his reign the influence exercised over him by Olympia Maidalchina, his deceased brother’s wife, was very great, and such as to give rise to gross scandal, for which, however, there appears to have been no adequate ground. He naturally enough objected to the conclusion of the peace of Westphalia, against which his nuncio in his name vainly protested, and against which he issued the bull “Zelo domus Dei” in November 1648. The most important of his doctrinal decisions was his condemnation of the five Jansenist propositions in 1653. The avarice of his female counsellor gave to his reign a tone of oppression and sordid greed which probably it would not otherwise have shown, for personally he was not without noble and reforming impulses. He died January 5, 1655, and was succeeded by Alexander VII.

INNOCENT XI., Benedetto Odescalchi, pope from 1676 to 1689, was born at Como in 1611, studied law at Rome and Naples, held successively the offices of protonotary, president of the apostolic chamber, commissary of the Marca di Roma, and governor of Macerata; in 1647 Innocent X. made him cardinal, and he afterwards successively became legate to Ferrara and bishop of Novara. In all these capacities the simplicity and purity of character which he displayed had combined with his unselfish and openhanded benevolence to secure for him a high place in the popular affection and esteem; and two months after the death of Clement X. he was (September 21, 1676), in spite of French opposition, chosen his successor. He lost no time in declaring and practically manifesting his zeal as a reformer of manners and a corrector of administrative abuses. He sought to abolish sinecures and to put the papal finances otherwise on a sound footing; beginning with the clergy, he sought to raise the laity also to a higher moral standard of living. Some of his regulations with the latter object, however, may raise a smile as showing more zeal than judgment. In 1679 he publicly condemned sixty-five propositions, taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez, and the like, as “propositiones laxorum moralistarum,” and forbade any one to teach them under penalty of excommunication. Personally not unfriendly to Molinos, he nevertheless so far yielded to the enormous pressure brought to bear upon him as to confirm in 1687 the judgment of the inquisitors by which sixty-eight Molinist propositions were condemned as blasphemous and heretical. His pontificate was marked by the prolonged struggle with Louis XIV. of France on the subject of the so-called “Gallican Liberties,” and also about certain ...

INNOCENT XII., Antonio Pignatelli, pope from 1691 to 1700, was the successor of Alexander VIII. He came of a distinguished Neapolitan family, and was born March 13, 1615. Educated at the Jesuit college in Rome, he in his twentieth year became an official of the court of Urban VIII.; under successive popes he served as nuncio at Florence and Vienna and in Poland; and by Innocent XI. he was made cardinal (1681) and archbishop of Naples. Immediately after his election (July 12, 1691) he declared against the nepotism which had too much and too long been one of the greatest scandals of the papacy; the bull “Romanum decet Pontificem,” issued in 1692, prohibited popes in all times coming from bestowing estates, offices, or revenues on any relative; at the same time he sought to check thé simoniacal practices of the apostolic chamber, and in connexion with this to introduce a simpler and more economical manner of life into his court. He introduced various much-needed reforms into the States of the Church, and for the better administration of justice erected the Forum Innocentianum. In 1693 he compelled the French bishops to retract the four propositions relating to the “Gallican Liberties” which had been formulated by the assembly of 1682. In 1699 he decided in favour of Bossuet in his controversy with Fénelon about the Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Intérieure of the latter. His pontificate contrasted with that of a series of predecessors in having marked leanings towards France instead of Germany. This benevolent, self-abnegating, and pious pope died on September 27, 1700, and was succeeded by Clement XI.

INNOCENT XIII., Michael Angelo Conti, pope from 1721 to 1724, was born in 1655, and became cardinal under Clement XI. in 1706. From 1697 to 1710 he acted as papal nuncio to the kingdom of Portugal, where he is believed to have formed those unfavourable impressions of the Jesuits which afterwards influenced his conduct towards them. In 1721 his high reputation for ability, learning, purity, and a kindly disposition secured his election to succeed Clement XI. His pontificate was prosperous, but comparatively uneventful. He prohibited the Jesuits from prosecuting their mission in China, and ordered that no new members should be received into the order. This indication of his sympathies encouraged some French bishops to approach him with a petition for the recall of the bull “Unigenitus” by which Jansenism had been condemned; the request, however, was peremptorily denied. Innocent XIII., like his predecessor, showed much favour to the English Pretender “James III.,” and liberally supported him. He died March 7, 1724, and was succeeded by Benedict XIII.