Pope Honorius III (1216-1227)

The pope who confirmed three great orders

The thirteenth century saw the birth of an entirely new form of religious life: no longer the monk bound to his monastery, but the mendicant friar who preached along the roads, lived on alms and carried the Gospel into the heart of the cities. This spiritual revolution had a juridical patron: Honorius III. He confirmed the Order of Preachers of Saint Dominic by the bull Religiosam vitam of December 22, 1216^[11], the Rule of the Friars Minor of Saint Francis of Assisi by the bull Solet annuere of November 29, 1223^[12], and the Order of Carmel by the bull Ut vivendi normam of January 30, 1226.^[13]

Without this papal guarantee, the intuitions of Dominic and Francis might have remained local adventures, suspect in the eyes of a hierarchy worried by wandering preachers. By approving them, Honorius brought into the law of the Church what would become the great missionary sap of the following centuries.

The pope of gentleness after Innocent III's iron rule

Innocent III (1198-1216) had been the most powerful pope of the Middle Ages, wielding interdict and excommunication as instruments of government. Honorius III, already old at his election, chose the opposite path. The Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes the contrast in a single line:

"Like his famous predecessor Innocent III, he had set his mind on the achievement of two great things, the recovery of the Holy Land and a spiritual reform of the entire Church; but quite in contrast with him he sought these achievements by kindness and indulgence rather than by force and severity" — Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Honorius III", 1910^[14]

This gentleness was not weakness: it was a method. Honorius waited, negotiated, and multiplied the delays granted to Frederick II; he reconciled Italian cities at war. The risk of this patience — as we shall see — was that the emperor abused papal indulgence. But it earned the pope this judgment of the Catholic Encyclopedia: he deserved "the gratitude of the world as the great pacificator of his age".^[15]

The "great peacemaker" of Christendom

Understanding that no crusade was possible while Christian princes were making war on one another, Honorius III deployed a diplomacy of remarkable breadth. From the England of the young Henry III to the Spain of the Reconquista, from Portugal to Scandinavia, from Bohemia to Hungary, few European dossiers escaped his arbitration.^[16][17] Again, his weapon was not the sword but the letter, the legate, and patient mediation.

Not to be confused with the false “Grimoire of Pope Honorius”

A clarification is necessary at once, because the confusion constantly returns. There is a book of black magic entitled The Grimoire of Pope Honorius, which claims to date from the thirteenth century and to carry the authority of Honorius III for operations of necromancy. It is a fake: its first known printing dates from 1629 (seventeenth century), with an edition attested in 1670, some four hundred years after the pope's death (1227).^[18] This article devotes a later section to it, because this occult calumny deserves to be dismantled point by point.

A Roman in the service of the Curia

Cencio was a child of Rome, traditionally attached to the Savelli family and said to be the son of a certain Aimeric — a membership challenged by recent research, since no contemporary document names him Savelli.^[19][20] His career was that of a high servant of the Church: first canon of Saint Mary Major, he became chamberlain (camerlengo) of the Roman Church in 1188, that is, administrator of papal finances.^[21] In 1193, Pope Celestine III created him cardinal-deacon of Santa Lucia in Silice; he later became cardinal-priest of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, then vice-chancellor of the Roman Church.^[22][23]

This trajectory — finances, archives, chancery — shaped a man of order and method, more administrator than militant theologian. He can also be seen at the feet of Christ in the apse mosaic of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, which he himself commissioned around 1220.^[24] It also explains the masterpiece of his pre-papal work.

The Liber Censuum: the papacy's archivist

As chamberlain, Savelli completed in 1192 a considerable work: the Liber Censuum Romanae Ecclesiae, begun under Clement III.^[25] This register methodically recorded the revenues, donations, privileges and contracts of the Roman Church — who owed what to the Holy See, which abbeys and kingdoms were tributary to it. It remains today one of the most precious sources for the economic and administrative history of the medieval papacy.^[26]

Far from being a mere book of accounts, the Liber Censuum was an instrument of government: it fixed the memory of the Church's rights in an age when everything rested on custom and parchment. Savelli already appears there as the man who wanted to give written and lasting form to what floated in usage — the same intuition that would preside, thirty years later, over the Compilatio quinta.

Tutor of Frederick II

In 1197, Cencio Savelli received a mission heavy with consequences: he became tutor of the young Frederick, the future emperor Frederick II, an orphan entrusted by Empress Constance to the guardianship of Innocent III.^[27][28] The Roman cardinal thus educated the child who would become the most brilliant and the most elusive sovereign of his century.

This personal bond weighed on the whole pontificate: once pope, Honorius treated Frederick with the indulgence of an old master toward his former pupil, always hoping for the promised crusade — and always disappointed.

The compromise election of 1216

Innocent III died at Perugia on July 16, 1216. Two days later, on July 18, 1216, nineteen cardinals gathered there to give him a successor. The troubled state of Italy and the fear of schism pushed them toward a compromise election: they delegated the choice to two of their number, Ugolino of Ostia (the future Gregory IX) and Guido of Praeneste.^[29][30] Their choice fell on Cencio Savelli, who accepted the tiara reluctantly and took the name Honorius III.

The ceremonial sequence was rapid: consecrated at Perugia on July 24, crowned at Rome on August 31, he took possession of the Lateran on September 3, 1216.^[31] The Roman people, delighted to have as pontiff a child of the city known for his goodness, welcomed him with joy.^[32]

This is where the lasting greatness of Honorius III is found. The following table summarizes the religious foundations he covered with his authority.

The Dominicans: the bull Religiosam vitam (1216)

The new pope's first major act was also one of the most consequential. On December 22, 1216, barely four months after his coronation, Honorius III promulgated the bull Religiosam vitam, which gave universal recognition to the Order of Preachers of Saint Dominic.^[33] The order, then established in the Toulouse region of southern France — it had received the previous year a local approval from the bishop of Toulouse — would spread to Paris, Bologna and Rome from the missionary dispatch of 1217; its birth had coincided with the Albigensian Crusade in southern France, where the future Dominicans had distinguished themselves by preaching against the Cathar heresy.^[34]

Religiosam vitam is considered the bull confirming the Order: it placed the institute under the direct protection of the Holy See and assigned it the rule of Saint Augustine.^[35] By recognizing an order entirely devoted to doctrinal preaching — something then unprecedented — Honorius armed the Church with a decisive instrument against heresy and for the formation of the faithful.

The Franciscans: the bull Solet annuere (1223)

The second great act concerned Francis of Assisi. In 1221, Francis had given his brothers a rule of life, the so-called Regula prima, which Rome could not approve because it lacked a sufficient juridical basis. On the advice of Cardinal Ugolino (the future Gregory IX, protector of the order), Francis withdrew in 1223 to the hermitage of Fonte Colombo to revise the text.^[36][37]

The revised rule — the Regula bullata — was approved by the bull Solet annuere of November 29, 1223.^[38] It is the definitive version, after those of 1209 and 1221, that the Friars Minor still observe today: its opening line, quoted at the head of this article, gathers the entire Franciscan ideal into one sentence — to live the holy Gospel "without anything of one's own." The bull itself, which reproduces the full text of the Rule before confirming it, opens with the incipit from which it takes its name:

« Honorius episcopus servus servorum Dei dilectis filiis, fratri Francisco et aliis fratribus de Ordine Fratrum Minorum, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem : Solet annuere Sedes Apostolica piis votis et honestis petentium desideriis favorem benivolum impertiri… » ("Honorius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons Brother Francis and the other brothers of the Order of Friars Minor, greeting and apostolic blessing: the Apostolic See is wont to grant its benevolent favor to the pious desires and honest requests of petitioners…"; article's translation) — bull Solet annuere of Honorius III, November 29, 1223^[39]

By this act, the pope engraved in canonical stone the poorest and most evangelical intuition of the Middle Ages: life according to the Gospel, without property or power.

The Carmelites: the bull Ut vivendi normam (1226)

The third great act was more discreet but just as lasting. On January 30, 1226, Honorius III approved by the bull Ut vivendi normam the rule of the hermits of Mount Carmel, given by Saint Albert of Jerusalem.^[40] This contemplative order, born in the Holy Land, would soon transplant to the West a spirituality of prayer and silence from which, centuries later, Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross would emerge. Its mendicant status was clarified afterwards: in 1247, Innocent IV adapted the rule to Western conditions (Quae honorem) and gave it its definitive approval.^[41]

Thus, in the space of ten years, three spiritual families — preachers, minors, contemplatives — received from the hand of Honorius III their canonical birth certificate.

The Val des Ecoliers and other foundations

Honorius did not stop with the three great orders. On March 7, 1219, by the bull Exhibita nobis, he approved the congregation of the Val des Ecoliers, born from four masters in theology of the University of Paris who had renounced their chairs for religious life.^[42] He is also credited with privileges to the Crucifers and with the extension, disputed by historians, of the Portiuncula indulgence granted to Saint Francis.^[43] This administrator-pope was consistently a generous patron of new charisms.

The imperial coronation of November 22, 1220

Honorius III saw only one prince capable of reconquering the Holy Land: his former pupil Frederick II.^[44] On November 22, 1220, he crowned him emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in Rome, hoping thereby to hasten the departure of the crusade.^[45][46] In exchange, Frederick renewed his oath of allegiance to the papacy, confirmed the annual tribute owed for Sicily and reaffirmed his intention to depart for the East.^[47]

The pope even consented, reluctantly, to recognize Frederick's son Henry as king of the Romans, thus uniting on one head the kingdom of Sicily and the Empire — a concentration of power dangerous for the papacy, caught between the two.^[48]

Oaths endlessly deferred

Here lies the drama of the pontificate. Frederick II had sworn to depart as early as 1217; he then multiplied promises and retreats, which Honorius, with the indulgence of an old teacher, accepted one after another.^[49][50] The list of these delays is telling:

Honorius recognized the dilemma with disenchanted realism:

"Without the co-operation of the emperor a successful crusade was impossible." — Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope Honorius III", 1910^[51]

He feared that too harsh a measure would provoke an irreparable rupture. Only under his successor Gregory IX would Frederick, finally departed and then excommunicated, accomplish his crusade — in paradoxical conditions.

Damietta: the failure of 1221

Without the emperor, the Fifth Crusade departed without him. Launched after the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), preached and financed with difficulty — the pope and cardinals paying a tenth, the rest of the clergy a twentieth of their revenues for three years — it reached Egypt.^[52][53] The crusaders of Andrew II of Hungary and of the lower Rhineland captured Damietta, but, for lack of unity and because of the rivalry between the commanders and the papal legate Pelagius, the expedition turned to disaster: Damietta was lost again on September 8, 1221.^[54][55]

The muted arm-wrestling match with the emperor

Seeing Frederick abuse his indulgence and encroach on ecclesiastical appointments in Apulia, and mistreat King John of Jerusalem, Honorius attempted toward the end to use more severe measures.^[56] But the open rupture did not occur in his lifetime: it would erupt frontally under Gregory IX. Honorius died without having seen either the crusade succeed or the emperor keep his word — "without seeing the realization of his hopes".^[57]

Since the crusade required peace among Christians, Honorius III made it the work of his life. The table below gives an overview of the extent of his arbitration.

The England of the young Henry III

Since Innocent III had made England a papal fief, the pope possessed supreme authority there. At the death of John Lackland (October 19, 1216), his son Henry III, aged nine, needed papal protection against the rebellious barons and Prince Louis of France.^[58][59] On January 19, 1217, Honorius wrote to William Marshal, earl of Pembroke and guardian of the young king, so that he would prepare war against the rebels; on September 11, 1217, Henry III was recognized as undisputed king.^[60] Through his legates Gualo and then Pandulf, the pope in effect governed England during these years, the young king and the barons recognizing him as suzerain of the kingdom.^[61]

Spain, Portugal and the Reconquista

In the Iberian Peninsula, Honorius worked both for peace among Christian princes and for war against Islam. He obtained a lasting peace between Ferdinand III of Castile and Alfonso IX of Leon, protected the young King James of Aragon, and launched an anti-Moorish crusade in 1218-1219.^[62][63] In Portugal, from 1220 to 1223, he defended the archbishop of Braga against the excommunicated king Alfonso II.^[64] The Reconquista found in him a constant support.

The Latin Empire of Constantinople

Honorius also inherited the situation created by the Fourth Crusade, which had installed a Latin Empire in Constantinople. On April 9, 1217 — the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia gave April 12, a discrepancy left visible here for lack of new evidence —, he crowned Peter of Courtenay emperor of Constantinople, and then protected his successors Robert and King Demetrius of Thessalonica.^[65][66] He also tried to settle conflicts between Greeks and Latins in Cyprus — an eastern diplomacy as delicate as it was uncertain.

The margins of Christendom: Prussia, Scandinavia, Central Europe

Few regions escaped his attention. In Bohemia (1223), his legate protected the rights of the Church against King Ottokar; in Hungary, he defended King Andrew II against his rebellious son; in Denmark (1224), he obtained the release of King Valdemar, captive of Count Henry of Schwerin; in Sweden, he defended the rights of the Church and promoted clerical celibacy.^[67][68] He also supported Bishop Christian in the evangelization of the pagans of Prussia, calling several ecclesiastical provinces to prepare a crusade in 1222.^[69] From the Baltic to the Mediterranean, the whole of Christendom passed through his arbitration.

The Compilatio quinta: one of the first official collections of decretals

Honorius III left a major mark on the history of Church law. As early as 1217, he had his own decretals gathered into a collection, following the example of Innocent III, who had authorized the Compilatio tertia in 1210.^[70] The work, entrusted to the canonist Tancred of Bologna, resulted around May 2, 1226 in the Compilatio quinta, promulgated by the bull Novae causarum and immediately sent to the University of Bologna. Historians of canon law regard it as one of the oldest official books of canon law in the history of the Church.^[71]

It was a decisive step: the Church thus possessed an authentic code, promulgated by the pope himself and intended for university teaching. Honorius thus directly prepared the great collection of his successor, Gregory IX's Liber Extra (1234), the foundation of canon law for seven centuries.

Super Specula: theological formation of the clergy

A learned pope, Honorius III required serious formation from the clergy, especially in theology.^[72] He refused to confirm the episcopal election of some clerics judged too ignorant, and even deposed a bishop for illiteracy.^[73] By the bull Super Specula Domini, he ordered that gifted young clerics study theology in recognized schools, so that they could return to teach in their dioceses.^[74] He showered the universities of Paris and Bologna with privileges — investing in the intelligence of the faith as much as in its government.

The canonizations of Honorius III

Honorius III canonized six or seven saints.^[75] The Catholic Encyclopedia details four of them, listed in the following table:

He also investigated miracles attributed to Saint Maurice of Carnoet, a Cistercian abbot, and probably canonized Saint Raynerius, bishop of Aquila.^[76] Through these acts, Honorius continued to weave the link between Rome and the distant Churches of northern Europe.

A pope who wrote

Beyond the Liber Censuum and the Compilatio quinta, Honorius III was a prolific author. He wrote a Life of Celestine III, a Life of Gregory VII, an Ordo Romanus (a guide to ecclesiastical ceremonial), thirty-four sermons and abundant correspondence.^[77] His figure is that of a man of the pen and the archive as much as of government — far from the sulphurous image that, four centuries later, the false grimoire of black magic usurping his name would earn him.^[78]

A book of black magic falsely attributed to the pope

The name of Honorius III has been stained by one of the most famous occult impostures in history. There is a book of magic entitled The Grimoire of Pope Honorius, which claims to offer recipes for invoking and commanding demons — and which appeals to the authority of a pope.^[79] Not to be confused with the medieval Liber Juratus attributed to Honorius of Thebes: that is a distinct text, with no link to this late grimoire.^[80] The first known edition is French and dates from 1629 (seventeenth century), with an edition attested in 1670; it claims to go back to the thirteenth century and to Honorius III.^[81]

Why it is an imposture

The proofs of falsification are overwhelming. The text, whose first known printing dates from 1629 (edition attested in 1670), thus appeared some four hundred years after the pope's death (1227).^[82] Analyses note glaring anachronisms: the grimoire refers to later magical works, such as the Heptameron (1531), and to medieval texts that never existed. Paleographic examination dates the surviving manuscripts to the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, and the printed editions carry false dates meant to make them artificially older.^[83]

What the Church and historians say

The occultist Arthur Edward Waite himself, though familiar with this literature, judged the work bluntly:

"It is a malicious and somewhat clever imposture, undeniably calculated to deceive the ignorant persons of its time who were inclined to magic, and still more ignorant priests, since it claims to convey the express sanction of the Apostolic See for operations of infernal magic and necromancy." — A. E. Waite, historian of occultism^[84]

For its part, the Church finds no historical proof that such a book was ever authorized by a pope.^[85] The procedure is transparent: to dress subversive magic in the reassuring costume of papal authority, at a time of tensions between Catholicism and esoteric currents. To attribute to Honorius III — a gentle pope, an administrator, a protector of the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the hermits of Carmel — a manual of necromancy is pure posthumous calumny. The real Honorius III did not command demons: he confirmed the sons of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic.

A decisive transitional pope

Honorius III is one of those pontiffs whom history places in the background, between two giants — Innocent III before him, Gregory IX after him. Yet his record is immense: three religious orders confirmed — Dominicans and Franciscans, already mendicant, and hermits of Carmel, whose mendicant status would only be clarified in 1247 —, an emperor crowned, one of the first official codes of canon law, and peace patiently woven from one end of Christendom to the other.^[86][87][88] He was the pope who knew how to receive and stabilize the new forces that had arisen under his predecessor.

The spiritual lesson: the fruitfulness of gentleness

The most accurate spiritual point of this pontificate lies in its method. Where Innocent III had governed by force, Honorius governed by patience and kindness — even at the risk of being deceived by Frederick II. But this gentleness was not sterile: it was this that knew how to welcome the disconcerting charisms of Francis and Dominic, where a more suspicious Church might have stifled them. History often remembers the popes who strike; it should remember more often those who, like Honorius III, know how to recognize and bless what the Spirit brings to birth. True fruitfulness, sometimes, is not in the brilliant stroke, but in the humble assent given to something greater than oneself.

• Pope Innocent III — Honorius III's predecessor, the most powerful pope of the Middle Ages.
• Saint Francis of Assisi — whose Rule Honorius III confirmed by Solet annuere in 1223.
• Saint Dominic — founder of the Order of Preachers, confirmed by Religiosam vitam in 1216.
• Pope Honorius II — another pope of the same name, not to be confused.
• Pope Honorius I — another Honorius, whose posthumous case was very different.
• Fourth Lateran Council (1215) — the great council of Innocent III that launched the crusade taken up by Honorius III.
• The Crusades — for the Fifth Crusade and the loss of Damietta.