RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Honorius
against heretics and the Italian states was strengthened- it gained possession of the donation of Matilda and full authority in the ecclesiastical territory (see Papal States) ; and Honorius was able to hold his place in Rome. In spite of the insistence of Honorius Frederick still delayed, and the Egyptian campaign failed miserably with the loss of Damietta (Sept. 8, 1221). June 24, 1225, was finally fixed as the date for the departure of Frederick; and Honorius brought about his marriage with Isabella, heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem, with a view to binding him closer to the plan. The treaty of San Germano in July, 1225, permitted a further delay of two years. Frederick now sought to upbuild his power in northern Italy, and presumed to summon the population of the states of the Church to help him subject the Lombards, threatening penalties against the delinquents. The long-suffering Honorius took up his subjects' cause. Frederick's plans in northern Italy were not very successful, and he met Honorius half-way when conciliation was proposed. According to the pope's arbitrament (Jan. 5, 1227), Frederick was to take the Lombards back into favor and, on condition of their keeping the peace, allow them the status quo and the recognition of their league, while penalties imposed upon them were such as served the ends of the Church.
Frederick now made serious preparations for the crusade. In the midst, however, of his hopes for the final attainment of the aim so eagerly desired Honorius died, Mar. 18, 1227 His policy had been one of general friendliness toward the emperor, because he could not do without his help for the crusade; and Frederick made ample use of this fact. In his failure to keep his promises to set out for the holy land, he had on his side the princes and the nations of Europe, among whom the old crusading enthusiasm had begun to die out. But Honorius really had too large a task; besides the liberation of the holy land, he felt bound to forward the repression of heresy in the south of France, the war for the faith in the Spanish peninsula, the planting of Christianity in the lands along the Baltic, and the maintenance of the impossible Latin empire in Constantinople. Of these duties the rooting out of heresy lay nearest to Honorius's heart. In the south of France he carried on Innocent's work, confirming Simon de Montfort in the possession of the lands of Raymond of Toulouse and succeeding, as Innocent had not, in drawing the royal house of France into the conflict. The most widely important event of this period was the siege and capture of Avignon. Both Honorius and Louis VIII. turned a deaf ear to Frederick's assertion of the claims of the empire to that town. Honorius confirmed the Dominican order in 1216 (see Dominic, Saint, and the Dominican Order), and the Franciscans in 1223 (see Francis, Saint, of Assisi, and the Franciscan Order). His writings are published in Horoy's Medii wvi bibliotheca patristica, vols, i.-v., Paris, 1879-83. The most important is the Liber censuum Romance ecclesice, which is the most valuable source for the medieval position of the Church in regard to property and the like, and also serves in part as a continuation of the Liber pontificalis.
(Hans Schulz.)
Bibliography: As sources consult the Letters, ed. C. Rodenberg, in MGH, Epist. saec. xiii., i (1883), 1-260, 729- 730; ed. P. Pressutti, vol. i., Rome, 1884; in Bouquet, Reciieil, xix. 609-778; also the Opera omnia, ed. Horoy, vols, i.-v., Paris, 1879-83 (includes the Vita by S. Majolo, ii. 397-410); and cf. W. H. Bliss, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers, i. 40-117, in Rolls Series, London, 1893. Consult further: J. Clausen, Papst Honorius III., Bonn, 1895; P. T. Masetti, / Pontefici Onorio III., Gregorio IX. ed Innocenzo V ., Rome, 1884; A. von Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom, ii. 500 sqq., Berlin, 1867; W. Wattenbach, Geschichte des romischen Papsttums, pp. 196 sqq., ib. 1876; F. Gregorovius, Hist, of the City of Rome, v. 110-141 et passim, London, 1897; B. Platina, Lives of the Popes, ii. 73-76, ib. n.d. ; Milman, Latin Christianity, v. 221 sqq.; Bower, Popes, ii. 550-552; and the literature under Crusades dealing with his period. A large list of books is given in Hauck-Herzog, RE, viii. 318-319.
Honorius IV. (Giacomo Savelli): Pope 1285-87. He was a great-nephew of Honorius III., and was born about 1210. He was educated at Paris, made a cardinal by Urban IV in 1261, unanimously elected pope at Perugia Apr. 2, 1285, and crowned May 20. The most pressing question that confronted him was that of Sicily, where the famous " Vespers " of Mar. 30, 1282, had rent away half the kingdom from the Church and its vassal, Charles of Anjou; Peter of Aragon had been crowned at Palermo as the husband of Manfred's daughter, and the Ghibelline faction was becoming more audacious all over Italy. The war between France and Aragon ended with a precipitate withdrawal of the French, and Philip IV thought more of strengthening his power at home than of foreign conquest; Charles II., for eighteen months a prisoner, was anxious to secure his freedom at the cost of renouncing his claims to Sicily. The power of Aragon was now divided, the Spanish kingdom going to Peter's eldest son, Alfonso, the Sicilian to his brother James. Honorius refused to recognize him and maintained the claims of the Church to the island, treating as invalid the renunciation of Charles II., made at Barcelona Feb. 27, 1287. Edward I. of England had brought about a truce between Alfonso and Philip IV. (July 25, 1286), which Honorius approved; and when Alfonso's envoys came to Rome at Christmas, though he nominally maintained his predecessor's policy of hostility to the house of Aragon, he showed himself ready for further negotiations. He did not, however, live to see the end of these troubles, which came in 1302 under Boniface VIII. He had better success in the Continental portion of the kingdom of Sicily, where he asserted his rights as suzerain, limited the royal power, and enacted important statutes for the protection of the people against arbitrary tyranny. In regard to the crusading plans which he had inherited, he confined himself to collecting the tithes imposed by the Council of Lyons, arranging with the great banking-houses of Florence, Sienna, and Pistoia to act as his agents. In his relations with the empire, where no more danger was to be apprehended since the fall of the Hohenstaufen, he followed the via media taken by Gregory X. Rudolf of Hapsburg sent Bishop Henry of Basel to Rome to request coronation. Honorius appointed the envoy archbishop of Mainz, fixed a date for the coronation, and sent Cardinal John of Tusculum to Germany to assist Rudolf's cause. But general
Honorius Honter