160 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
other age except during the papal counter- Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The audacious papal claim to imperialism corrected itself by the policy employed by Innocent and his successors to establish the claim over the souls and bodies of men and the governments of the earth.1
§ 38. Innocent and the Grerman Empire.
ADDITIONAL LITERATURE. — Ed. WINKELMANN : Philip von Scliwaben und Otto IV. von Braunschweig, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1873-1878. — R. SCHWEMER: Innocent III. und d. deutsche Kirche wahrend des Thronstreites von
1198-1208, Strassburg, 1882.
The political condition of Europe was favorable to In nocent's assertion of power. With the sudden death of Henry VI., Sept. 28, 1197, at the early age of thirty-two, the German empire was left without a ruler. Frederick, the Emperor's only son, was a helpless child. Throughout Italy a reaction set in against Henry's hard and oppressive rule. The spirit of national freedom was showing itself, and a general effort was begun to expel the German princes and counts from Italian soil.
Innocent III. has been called by Ranke Henry's real suc cessor.2 Taking advantage of the rising feeling of Italian nationality, the pope made it his policy to separate middle and lower Italy from the empire, and, in fact, he became the deliverer of the peninsula from foreign agents and mercenaries. He began his reign by abolishing the last vestiges of the authority of the empire in the city of Rome. The city pre fect, who had represented the emperor, took the oath of allegiance to the pope, and Innocent invested him with a
1 Hauck, IV. 743, acknowledging the genius of Innocent, expresses the somewhat disparaging judgment that "he was more of a rhetorician than a theologian, and more of a jurist and administrator than a statesman." Many Protestant writers of Germany show their national feeling by a dis position to disparage Gregory VII. and Innocent III.
2 Wdtgeschichte, VIII. 274. Matthews, 105 sq. gives Henry VI.'s Testa ment,
§ 38. INNOCENT AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 161
mantle and silver cup. The senator likewise acknowledged Innocent's authority and swore to protect the Roman see and the regalia of St. Peter.
The pope quickly pushed his authority beyond the walls of Rome. Spoleto, which for six centuries had been ruled by a line of German dukes, Assisi, Perugia, and other cities, sub mitted. Mark of Anweiler, the fierce soldier of Henry VI., could not withstand the fortunate diplomacy and arms of Innocent, and the Romagna, with Ravenna as its centre, yielded. A Tuscan league was formed which was favorably disposed to the papal authority. Florence, Siena, Pisa, and other cities, while refusing to renounce their civic freedom, granted privileges to the pope. Everywhere Innocent had his legates. Such full exercise of papal power over the State of the Church had not before been known.
To confirm her son Frederick's title to the crown of Sicily, his mother delivered the kingdom over to the pope as a papal fief. She survived her imperial consort only a year, and left a will appointing Innocent the guardian of her child. The intellectual training and political destinies of the heir of the Hohenstaufen were thus intrusted to the hereditary foe of that august house. Innocent was left a free hand to prosecute his trust as he chose.1
In Germany, Innocent became the umpire of the imperial election. The electors were divided between two aspirants to the throne, Philip of Svvabia, the brother of Henry VI., who was crowned at Mainz, and Otto, the son of Henry the Lion, who was crowned at Aachen by Adolf, archbishop of Cologne. Otto was the nephew of Richard Cceur de Lion and John of England, who supported his claims with their gold and diplomacy. Both parties made their appeal to Rome, and it is not a matter of surprise that Innocent's sympathies
1 One of Frederick's first acts was to release a portion of his patrimony to the pope's brother, Count Kichard. At a later period, under Honorius, Fred erick recalled his gift.