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 ...