Pope Innocent II (1130-1143)

The pope who survived an antipope

Innocent II was not a pope of original doctrine or mysticism: he was a pope of legitimacy. The whole question of his pontificate can be put in one sentence: who is the true successor of Peter when two men are elected on the same day? On February 14, 1130, after Honorius II's death, a commission of eight cardinals — two bishops, three priests, three deacons —, mandated by the college and gathered around Chancellor Haimeric, hastily elected Gregorio Papareschi; only six members sat that morning, despite the protests of the canonist Pietro Pisano. Three hours later, the other cardinals — the majority of the college — elected Pietro Pierleoni.^{[9][10][11][12]} Both received episcopal consecration on February 23, 1130, Innocent at Santa Maria Nuova, Anacletus at Saint Peter's. For eight years Christendom had to settle not a theological quarrel, but a question of communion: with which of the two must one be at peace in order to be in the Church?

The answer came neither from force nor from numbers, but from a moral consensus built country by country. This is what gives the case its lasting interest: the schism of 1130 shows that papal legitimacy, in a doubtful case, is recognized by canonical regularity and the communion of the universal Church, discerned with the help of the saints, not by the material possession of Rome.^[13][14]

The pope of Saint Bernard

No medieval pontificate is as closely linked to a saint as Innocent II's is to Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard judged in favor of Innocent at the Council of Etampes in August–September 1130; Bernard had Innocent recognized by Henry I of England, contributed to the rallying of Emperor Lothair at Liege in 1131, and finally brought back William X's Aquitaine in 1134; Bernard obtained the submission of the second antipope, Victor IV, in 1138; Bernard again, at the Council of Sens in 1140, had Peter Abelard condemned by the pope.^[15][16][17] Innocent II is the pope whom Bernard's holiness caused to be recognized, defended and advised: his history is inseparable from that of the most influential Cistercian abbot of the 12th century.

The pope of the Second Lateran Council

Finally, Innocent II remains in the memory of the Church as the pope of the Second Lateran Council of 1139, the tenth ecumenical council. Convened to erase the schism juridically, this council went far beyond that aim: it reaffirmed the law of ecclesiastical celibacy, condemned simony and usury, restrained war through the Peace of God, and - a point capital for the faith - excommunicated sectarians who rejected the Eucharist, infant baptism and the priesthood.^[18][19] Through it, Innocent II's pontificate directly touches the defense of the sacraments.

Knowledge of Innocent II rests first on his own acts. His letters, bulls and privileges are gathered by Jacques-Paul Migne in the Patrologia Latina, volume 179, and catalogued in the great repertories of Philipp Jaffe.^[20][21] The narrative of the schism and pontificate is found in the Liber Pontificalis and in medieval biographical notices.^[22]

The most precious narrative sources are the letters of Saint Bernard (volume 182 of the Patrologia Latina), which plead Innocent's cause against Anacletus and illuminate the whole diplomacy of the schism.^[23] For the wars in the South, the Chronicon of Falco of Benevento, a contemporary witness, recounts Galluccio and the Treaty of Mignano; for Arnold of Brescia and the Roman commune, Otto of Freising provides the reference narrative.^[24][25] The canons of the Second Lateran Council, preserved in critical conciliar collections, give the exact text of the decrees of 1139.^[26]

Among synthetic works, the Catholic Encyclopedia notice (New Advent), the Treccani Enciclopedia dei Papi and the Encyclopaedia Britannica entries offer a reliable point of entry, cross-checked here with primary sources.^[27][28][29]

A Roman family from Trastevere

Gregorio Papareschi was born in Rome, in the popular riverside district of Trastevere, the son of a certain Giovanni of the old Guidoni family.^[30][31] His exact year of birth is unknown, but it falls in the last quarter of the 11th century. This Trastevere origin is not a detail: once pope, Innocent II rebuilt the great Marian basilica of his native district, Santa Maria in Trastevere, and would rest there. The Rome-born pope attached to his parish is also the one who would have to flee Rome and reconquer it.

Formed in the reforming milieu born of the Gregorian Reform, Gregorio belonged to the generation of clerics shaped by the struggle for the freedom of the Church. According to some sources, he passed through Cluniac observance before entering the entourage of the Roman curia.^[32]

Deacon, legate and negotiator of the Concordat of Worms

Pope Paschal II created him cardinal-deacon of Sant'Angelo around 1116.^[33] Gregorio then entered the restricted circle of papal diplomats. Under Gelasius II he shared the exile in France; under Callixtus II, he was sent to Germany in 1119 with the legate Lambert, and in 1122 took part in the negotiation of the Concordat of Worms, which ended the Investiture Controversy.^[34][35] This historic agreement - the emperor renounced the investiture of bishops by ring and crosier, while the Church recognized a role for the sovereign in elections - made Gregorio one of the artisans of peace between Priesthood and Empire.

A notable fact: the future Innocent II and the future antipope Anacletus II had been companions in mission. Both legates, both exiles together in France under Gelasius II, they embodied two paths within the same reforming curia before becoming the two poles of the schism.^[36][37] Their rivalry did not oppose a reformer to a worldly man, but two insiders of the Roman curia whom everything, until 1130, seemed to bring together.

The death of Honorius II and the two conclaves

Pope Honorius II died during the night of February 13-14, 1130. His end had been prepared in feverish tension by the two great rival Roman families, the Frangipani and the Pierleoni, who were fighting for control of the papacy.^[38][39] A commission of eight cardinals — six present on the morning of February 14 —, linked to the Frangipani and to Chancellor Haimeric, immediately elected Gregorio Papareschi under the name Innocent II and had him hastily consecrated. The same day, the majority of the Sacred College, indignant at the procedure, elected Cardinal Pietro Pierleoni under the name Anacletus II.^[40][41][42]

The two camps accused one another of haste and irregularity. Anacletus had the number of electors and mastery of Rome; Innocent had the speed of consecration and the support of the reform party. No clear procedure could yet settle the dispute: the law of papal election, fixed in 1059 but still imprecise on quorum, left room for conflict.^[43] The objection in favor of Anacletus, in its strongest form, is serious: elected by the majority of the college and effective master of Rome and Saint Peter's, he could appear to many as the legitimate pope. The Church's answer did not consist in settling the matter by Bernard's holiness alone: it rested on the regularity of the election — the commission of eight had received a mandate to elect, even if only six sat on the morning of February 14 —, subsequently confirmed by the progressive communion of the universal Church and by the discernment of Etampes.^[44][45][46]

Innocent II and Anacletus II: two conflicting legitimacies

Very quickly, Anacletus prevailed in Rome. Backed by his wealth, his Roman implantation and the resources of the Pierleoni, he controlled the basilicas, secured support and forced Innocent to flee. By the summer of 1130, Innocent II had embarked for France, leaving the City to his rival.^[47][48] The schism then took an unusual form: the pope who possessed Rome did not have the Church, and the pope who had the Church did not have Rome.

The question became European. Every kingdom, every bishop, every religious order had to choose. And the decisive criterion would not be possession of Saint Peter's, but the judgment of men of God on the regularity and dignity of the two elected men.

The Pierleoni, the Frangipani and Roman money

The schism of 1130 had a social dimension that must be named exactly. The Pierleoni were a powerful family of Roman bankers, whose ancestor had been a Jew converted to Christianity and baptized under the name Leo; their fortune had financed several reforming popes.^[49] Hostile propaganda basely exploited Anacletus's Jewish ancestry - an argument the Church never retained as a reason for his illegitimacy.

The true reason for Innocent's cause was therefore not Anacletus's origin, nor the relative wealth of the two camps, but the conviction, carried by the saints of his time, that the legitimacy of a pope is verified in the universal communion of the Church, and not in the material possession of Rome. France would now decide this.

The Council of Etampes and Saint Bernard's judgment

In August–September 1130, King Louis VI of France convened an assembly of bishops at Etampes to decide which of the two popes to recognize. The assembly entrusted the judgment to a single man: Bernard of Clairvaux, already regarded as the living conscience of Christendom.^[50][51] After examining both causes, Bernard pronounced in favor of Innocent II.

Bernard's criterion was that of the sanior pars, the "sounder part": between two elections, one must follow not necessarily the greater number, but the more regular and more worthy election, supported by men of better reputation. For Bernard, the moral dignity of Innocent and his supporters settled the doubt.^[52] The judgment of Etampes was the turning point of the schism: from then on, Bernard's spiritual authority, already recognized throughout Christendom for its integrity, would carry the temporal powers one after another.

The rallying of kings and empire

The rallying was swift. Once France was won, Bernard went to Henry I of England, who was hesitating, and convinced him to recognize Innocent; Germany followed, won in particular by Norbert of Xanten, a friend of Bernard.^[53][54] King Lothair III received Innocent at Liege on March 22, 1131, and declared for him.^[55] Aquitaine, whose duke William X first supported Anacletus against his own bishops, rallied only in 1134, through Bernard's personal action.^[56] At the synod of Reims opened on October 18, 1131, in the presence of Saint Bernard and Saint Norbert, Innocent II solemnly excommunicated Anacletus and crowned young Louis, son of Louis VI and future Louis VII of France.^[57][58]

Within a few months, the map of Christendom had been reversed: Anacletus held only Rome, Norman southern Italy and a few dioceses. Innocent held everything else - proof that papal legitimacy is measured by the communion of the universal Church, not by the custody of the City.

The imperial coronation of Lothair (1133)

In the spring of 1133, Lothair III descended into Italy to restore Innocent to Rome. But Anacletus still held Saint Peter's and the Castel Sant'Angelo. Innocent therefore had to crown the emperor, on June 4, 1133, not at Saint Peter's as tradition required, but in the Lateran Basilica.^[59][60] The symbol is eloquent: the legitimate pope received the emperor in his cathedral, but the antipope still locked the tomb of the Apostle.

Once Lothair had departed, Innocent could not remain in Rome and had to withdraw to Pisa. The schism continued: legitimacy recognized everywhere did not yet give him the City. Only the death of Anacletus would break the deadlock.

The Council of Pisa (1135)

Refugee in the North, Innocent II convened a great council at Pisa in May 1135, gathering the faithful bishops of Italy, France, England, Spain and Germany. The council excommunicated Anacletus II and his supporters again, and confirmed Innocent's authority over the universal Church.^[61][62] Saint Bernard again played a leading role, multiplying embassies to detach the last Italian cities from the Pierleoni party.

Anacletus's isolation tightened. His main support remained the Norman king Roger II of Sicily, whom he had crowned king in 1130 in exchange for his loyalty. The schism was now reduced to an alliance between the antipope and the Norman South against the pope and the emperor.^[63][64]

The death of Anacletus and the submission of Victor IV

The schism collapsed with its author. Anacletus II died on January 25, 1138, after eight years of parallel pontificate.^[65][66] His supporters, refusing to submit, immediately elected a new antipope, Victor IV (Gregorio Conti). But the cause was lost: deprived of money and support, and pressed by Saint Bernard, Victor IV renounced on May 29, 1138 and submitted to Innocent II.^[67]

Eight years after the double election, Innocent II was at last the sole pope, recognized by all. The way was open for the great reparative act of his pontificate: an ecumenical council intended to remake, in law, the unity that schism had broken.

An ecumenical council to restore unity

In April 1139, Innocent II gathered at the Lateran the tenth ecumenical council in the history of the Church, the second held in the Lateran basilica. Accounts report a thousand prelates present.^[68] The council opened on April 4.^[69][70]

Its first act was reparative: Innocent annulled all the acts of Anacletus II, declared null the ordinations conferred by the antipope and his bishops, and deposed those who had received them.^[71][72] The unity of the Church was thus restored not only in fact, but in canon law.

The canons: celibacy, simony, usury, Peace of God

The council promulgated thirty canons, which resumed and hardened the reform legislation of the century. On clerical celibacy, canon 6 deprived subdeacons, deacons and priests who had taken a wife or concubine of their office and benefice; canon 7 declared that unions contracted by such clerics were not true marriages.^[73] It is one of the foundational texts of priestly celibacy in the Latin Church.

In simple words: simony is the buying or selling of spiritual offices and graces; usury, the lending of money at interest; the Peace of God, the protection the Church imposes in favor of non-combatants, clerics, the poor and their goods; schismatic ordinations, those conferred outside communion with the legitimate pope; the neo-Manichaeans, preachers who, in the name of evangelical purity, rejected the reality of the sacraments.^[74]

The table below summarizes the main canons of 1139 and their scope.

Several of these canons became famous: the prohibition of usury, the protection of clerics and the poor by the Peace of God, and above all the condemnation of the crossbow in canon 29, judged a "deadly art hated by God" when used against Christians.^[75]

The condemnation of the neo-Manichaeans (canon 23)

The most important canon for the faith is canon 23, which strikes with anathema the sectarians — disciples of Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne — who, under cover of evangelical purity, rejected the sacraments of the Church. The Latin of the critical edition having not been collated here, the text is rendered in a working translation from the English of the Tanner edition: those who, simulating a form of piety, condemn the sacrament of the Lord's body and blood, infant baptism, the priesthood and the other ecclesiastical orders as well as lawful marriages are expelled from the Church of God and condemned as heretics; they must be constrained by the secular powers, and their defenders incur the same condemnation.^[76]

This text is capital: it shows that, as early as the 12th century, the Church solemnly defined as heretical the rejection of the real eucharistic presence, infant baptism and the ordained priesthood. Innocent II's council thus defended the sacramental heart of the Catholic faith against a wave of anti-sacramental illuminism that already foreshadowed later great contests. Degree of authority: this anathema touches faith itself — the reality of the sacraments —, whereas the canons on celibacy, simony or usury belong to ecclesiastical discipline: they bind in conscience but remain reformable by the authority of the Church.^[77]

Arnold of Brescia and the question of poverty

The council also dealt with Arnold of Brescia, a reforming monk and disciple of Abelard, who preached the absolute poverty of the clergy and contested the temporal power of the Church. The council deposed him, silenced him and banished him from Italy.^[78][79] Driven from Italy, Arnold reached France and then exile (Switzerland, Bohemia); he would return to Italy only after 1143 and would reach Rome only in 1145, under Eugene III — he thus had no part in the revolt of the Roman commune which darkened Innocent II's final months.

Arnold's case reveals the difficulty of the time: the thirst for reform and evangelical poverty, legitimate in itself, drifts toward rejection of the ecclesial institution as soon as it cuts itself off from communion and obedience. The Church reformed by Gregory VII had to guard itself both from laxity and from contesting illuminism.

Excommunication and war

One adversary remained whom Anacletus's death had not disarmed: Roger II of Sicily. Crowned king by the antipope in 1130, the Norman had built a powerful state in the South that the papacy refused to recognize. At the Second Lateran Council, in April 1139, Innocent II excommunicated Roger for having supported the schism.^[80][81] In the summer of 1139, the pope himself took the head of an army to subdue the rebel king.

The venture quickly failed. Roger feigned negotiation while his son prepared a military strike. The pope, confident in his strength, neglected the warnings.

The defeat of Galluccio (July 22, 1139)

On July 22, 1139, near Galluccio, southeast of Cassino, Roger III of Apulia, the king's son, appeared with a thousand knights and laid an ambush for the papal army. The rout was complete: Innocent II and his suite were captured.^[82][83] For the second time in a generation - after the captivity of Paschal II in 1111 - a pope fell into the hands of a prince while bearing arms.

The situation recalls a major doctrinal precedent: a pope can be defeated, humiliated and made prisoner without his office being diminished. The man is captive; the See of Peter remains.

The Treaty of Mignano (July 25, 1139)

Three days later, on July 25, 1139, Innocent II had to negotiate. At the Treaty of Mignano, he recognized Roger II as king of Sicily, duke of Apulia and prince of Capua, and invested his sons with the corresponding duchies:

"King of Sicily, of the duchy of Apulia and of the principality of Capua." — Title recognized to Roger II by Innocent II at the Treaty of Mignano, July 25, 1139^[84]

The humiliation was real, but realism prevailed: in exchange for recognition, Roger returned to the communion of the Church and became, in law, vassal of the Holy See for his lands. The Norman kingdom of Sicily, founded on a schismatic coronation, was thus regularized and attached to the papal sphere - a lasting gain despite the circumstances of its birth.^[85][86]

The Council of Sens (1140)

The last great affair of the pontificate was doctrinal. Peter Abelard, the most brilliant and daring of the masters of Paris, applied to theology a rational method that worried Saint Bernard. At Bernard's instigation, a council met at Sens in 1140 — the date retained by Baronius and Abbot Vacandard, placed in 1141 by Deutsch — to examine Abelard's writings.^[87][88] Bernard played the role of accuser there, drawing up the list of propositions judged erroneous on the Trinity, grace and the person of Christ.

Rather than defend himself before the council, Abelard appealed to Pope Innocent II. The council condemned his writings but entrusted the judgment of the man to the Holy See.^[89]

Innocent II's sentence

Innocent II confirmed the sentence: he condemned Abelard's books, had copies burned and imposed perpetual silence on their author.^[90][91] Abelard, submitted, withdrew to the abbey of Cluny with Peter the Venerable, who received him with charity and obtained his reconciliation before his death in 1142.

The affair was not a condemnation of reason as such: Abelard himself would remain a witness to the Christian effort to understand faith. But it marks the limit the Church sets to a reason that would claim to judge the Trinitarian mystery by its own powers alone. Faith asks for intelligence; it does not submit to it. This is the whole Catholic balance between faith and reason that Innocent II's sentence recalls.

The Templars and Omne datum optimum

Beyond the schism, Innocent II governed the whole Latin Church. His most lasting act was the bull Omne datum optimum, dated March 29, 1139, which officially approved the Rule of the order of the Templars, placed it under the direct protection of the Holy See, exempted it from episcopal jurisdiction and granted it the right to keep booty taken from infidels.^[92][93] This privilege, which made the Templars a militia directly linked to the pope, is the founding charter of their autonomy. Saint Bernard, author of the praise of the Templars De laude novae militiae, was not unrelated to this papal favor.

Saint Malachy, Ireland and canonizations

In 1139, Innocent II received in Rome the Irish archbishop Malachy of Armagh, a friend of Saint Bernard, and named him pontifical legate for all Ireland, associating him with the reform of the island Church.^[94] The pontificate was also marked by several solemn canonizations: Saint Godehard of Hildesheim at Reims in 1133, Saint Hugh of Grenoble at Pisa in 1134, Saint Sturm of Fulda at the Lateran in 1139.^[95] Innocent II thus fully exercised the governing and sanctifying office proper to the successor of Peter.

The Bourges conflict and the interdict on France

The final years were darkened by a conflict with King Louis VII of France, whom Innocent had once crowned. In 1141, the pope confirmed the election of Pierre de la Chatre as archbishop of Bourges against the royal candidate and himself gave him episcopal consecration; Louis VII refused to receive him, and Innocent II placed France under interdict.^[96][97] The confrontation, still unresolved at the pope's death, shows that the freedom of episcopal elections - the very issue of the Gregorian Reform - remained a permanent battle, even with the most devoted kings.

The revolt of the Roman commune

The Romans, weary of papal government, rose in 1143 and restored the Senate on the Capitoline, founding the commune of Rome.^[98][99] It was amid this revolt, which contested the pope's temporal power over his own city, that Innocent II died on September 24, 1143. He left to his immediate successors - Celestine II, Lucius II, then the Cistercian Eugene III, a disciple of Bernard - an insurgent Rome that would take decades to pacify.

Santa Maria in Trastevere and the memory of Innocent II

Innocent II's great monument is not a text, but a basilica. Pope of Trastevere, he had the basilica Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of Rome's oldest Marian churches, rebuilt from top to bottom on its ancient foundations. The twenty-two granite columns of the nave came from the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla.^[100] The great apse mosaic, dated to the years 1130–1143, represents Christ and the Virgin enthroned side by side - one of the earliest images of Mary's coronation - and shows Innocent II carrying the model of the church he had raised up.

First buried at Saint John Lateran, in a porphyry sarcophagus attributed to Emperor Hadrian, Innocent II rested there until the Lateran fire of 1308, which damaged the tomb: his remains were then moved to the vestibule of the basilica, then laid in the 15th century under a simple slab. They were subsequently transferred to Santa Maria in Trastevere, in the basilica he had had rebuilt, where the present monument was raised to him during the 19th-century restoration (Vespignani project).^[101][102] The Roman pope thus rests forever in the church of his native district, beneath the gaze of the crowned Virgin.

What remains of Innocent II? A pope without a doctrinal genius of his own, but whose pontificate secured three lasting gains for the Church.

First, the practical doctrine of papal legitimacy in case of double election: the communion of the universal Church, discerned by its saints, recognizes the true pope, not force or possession of Rome. The schism of 1130, overcome without a decisive battle, is its historical demonstration. Then came the conciliar reaffirmation of clerical celibacy, the struggle against simony and usury, and above all the defense of the sacraments - Eucharist, baptism, priesthood - against neo-Manichaean heresy in Lateran canon 23. Finally, the regularization of the kingdom of Sicily and the protection of the Templars, two major pieces in the political and religious geography of the 12th century.

The Church's verdict comes above all through Saint Bernard, who caused Innocent to be recognized, defended him, advised him and lamented his weaknesses. Innocent II's pontificate remains, in this respect, the medieval model for discerning between pope and antipope: not a balance of power, but a work of communion and holiness.

• Pope Paschal II (1099-1118) — the Investiture Controversy and the captivity of 1111, another pope humiliated by a prince.
• The Gregorian Reform — the great movement of liberation of the Church of which Innocent II is an heir.
• Pope Saint Gregory VII — the initiator of the reform and of the struggle against lay investiture.
• Saint Bernard of Clairvaux — the soul of the rallying to Innocent II and Abelard's accuser at Sens.