ABSTRACT
The pontificate of Pope Innocent III presents numerous challenges to historians. His great energy, which drew him into virtually all the major issues of his time, has made it difficult to form a coherent picture of his reign, beyond the general recognition of his strong commitment to reform. The result has been a tendency to focus on specific issues, treating his pontificate in a topical manner, with the figure of the pope himself moving dramatically across the stage as the main character, while those associated with him play only minor roles. In recent years, however, this approach has begun to change, due in considerable part to the work of Werner Maleczek.1 His detailed study of the college of cardinals under
Werner Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216: Die Kardindle unter Coelestin III undInnocenz III (Vienna, 1984), is exceptional in this regard. The biographers of Innocent III from Friedrich Hurter, Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten und seiner Zeitgenossen, 4 vols (Hamburg, 1841-1844) and Achilles Luchaire, Innocent III, 6 vols (Paris, 1904-1908) to Helene Tillmann, Papst Innocenz HI. (Bonn, 1954, English translation, Amsterdam, 1980) and Jane Sayers, Pope Innocent III: Leader of Europe, 1198-1216 (London, 1994), have taken a topical approach. More specialized works such as Christopher Cheney's Pope Innocent III and England (Stuttgart, 1976) and Raymonde Foreville's Innocent III et la France (Stuttgart, 1992), do examine changes of policy, but not usually from a curial perspective. Karl Wenck, 'Die romischen Papste zwischen Alexander III. und Innocenz m, und der Designationsversuch Weihnachten 1197', Papsttum undKaisertum (Munich, 1926), 41574, advanced a thesis concerning political differences within the college of cardinals in this period, but this view has been criticized and virtually rejected by Tillman (Pope, 291-2) and W. Maleczek (Papst, 264). Maleczek argues that there is no evidence for an ideological split in the college under
Celestine III and Innocent has revealed a significant change in the role of the cardinals after 1203. Whether this represents a turning point in policy terms is hard to say, since Maleczek finds no evidence for any ideological differences among the cardinals under Innocent.2 These were chiefly cardinals of Innocent's creation and included such important figures as Hugolino of Ostia, Benedict, cardinal-priest of Santa Susanna and later cardinal-bishop of Porto, Guala Bicchieri and Pelagius of Albano.
