ABSTRACT
Innocent's interventions were conventional and unsurprising. The pope had only involved himself in those matters where he considered it his obligation to impose his spiritual authority for the proper direction of Christian society. This is to say that Pope Innocent III only sought to intervene in nearly every matter of major political importance in Aragon in the period 1198–1216. The defeat of Muret redirected attention to the South and the Mediterranean, while interests in Sicily were, with the maximum irony, nurtured by the requirement of Innocent to protect his ward. Innocent attempted to reshape the episcopate with the same vigour with which he tried to mould the princes of the secular world. With the minority of James I, however conservative his methods, Innocent had extended his power in a radical manner and had allowed himself an extraordinary position in the governance of the realms of Aragon.
