ABSTRACT
On 8 January 1198, at 38 years of age Lothario dei Conti di Segni was elected Pope Innocent III. His eighteen-year ponticate (1198-1216) saw crusading reach unprecedented levels of intensity and diversity with campaigns directed at Cathar heretics in southern France (the Albigensian Crusade, 1209-18), against political opponents of the papacy in southern Italy and as we will see, more by accident than design, against the Christian Byzantine Empire, an event that culminated in the disastrous sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Innocent encouraged further crusading ventures in north-eastern Europe and the continuation of the reconquest of Spain. Contemporaries were so caught up in their enthusiasm for holy war that his ponticate also saw the near-legendary Children’s Crusade (1212). Inspired by visionary experiences, groups of young people near Chartres and Cologne became convinced that they could recover Jerusalem. They marched through France and Germany to the port of Genoa, only to be refused passage to the East because they had no money or equipment. While some were sold into slavery most returned home to be ridiculed for their foolishness. In no sense was this a ‘proper’ crusade – it was certainly not endorsed by the papacy – but the naïve hopes of these young people demonstrated popular enthusiasm to liberate the holy city and reected the passion for crusading Innocent had generated. Taken together, these campaigns show just how exible and adaptable a concept crusading had become by the early thirteenth century.
