HONORIUS
457
HONORIUS
decrees were passed against simoniacal elections and
contracts. On his return to Rome he was accom-
panied by William, Archbishop of Canterbury who
obtained legatine faculties for England and Scotland
from Honorius II, but was unsuccessful in his attempt
to prevail upon the pope to surrender his right of send-
ing special legates to England. At the request of the
King of Denmark, Honorius II also sent a legate
thither to put a stop to the abuses of the clergy in that
country.
The pope was less successful in his dealings with Count Roger of Sicily, who tried to gain possession of the lands which his deceased cousin William of Apulia had bequeathed to the Apostolic See. Honorius II placed him under the ban and took up arms against him in defence of the lawful property of the Church, but without avail. To put an end to a useless but costly war he made Roger feudatory Lord of Apulia in August, 1128, while Roger in his turn renounced his claims to Benevento and Capua. Shortly after his election to the papacy Honorius II excommunicated Count William of Normandy for having married a daughter of Fulco of Anjou within the forbidden degree. He likewise restored the disturbed discipline at the monasteries of Cluny and Monte Cassino where the excommunicated Abbots Pontius and Orderisius respectively retained possession of their abbatial office by force of arms. On 26 February, 1126, he approved the Premonstratensian Order which St. Norbert had founded at Premontrg si.x years previ- ously. His letters and diplomas (112 in number) are printed in P. L., CLVI, 1217-1.316.
ScHiNDKLHUTTE, Vita Honorii II (Marburg, 1735); Watte- RICH, Poniificum Romanorum qui iuerunt inde ab exeunle sceculo IX usque ad finem sfECuli XI JI vitm ab cequalibus conscripts, II (Leipzig, 1S62), 157-73 ; Jaffe, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, I (Leipzig, 1SS5-S), 823-39.
Michael Ott. Honorius II (Antipope). See Cadalous.
Honorius III (Cencio Savelli), Pope, b. at Rome, date of birth unknown; d. at Rome, 18 March, 1227. For a time he was canon at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, then he became papal chamberlain in IISS and Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Lucia in Silice in 1193. Under Pope Innocent III he became Cardinal-Priest of Santi Giovanni e Paolo and, in 1197, tutor of the fu- ture Emperor Frederick II, who had been given as ward to Innocent III by the Empress-widow Con- stantia. On 18 July, 1216, nine- teen cardinals assembled at Perugia (where Innocent had died two days previously) with the purpose of electing a new pope. The troublous stateof affairs in Italy, the threaten- ing attitude of the Tatars, and the fear of a schism, induced the cardinals to agree to an election by com- promise. Cardinals Ugolino of Ostia (afterwards Gregory IX) and Guido of Praeneste were empow- ered to appoint the new pope. Their choice fell upon Cencio Savelli, who accepted the tiara with reluctance and took the name of Honorius III. He was con- secrated at Perugia 24 July, was crowned at Rome 31 August, and took possession of the Lateran 3 September. The Roman people were greatly elated at the election, for Honorius III was himself a Roman and by his extreme kindness had endeared himself to the hearts of all.
Though already far advanced in age, his pontificate was one of strenuous activity. Like his famous pred- ecessor Innocent III, he had set his mind on the achievement of two ^eat things, the recovery of the Holy Land and a spiritual reform of the entire Church; but quite in contrast with him he sought these achieve- ments by kindness and indulgence rather than by force and severity. Immediately upon his accession
Arms of
Honorius III
to the papal throne he sent letters to the ecclesiastical
and the temporal rulers of Europe in which he ad-
monishes and encourages them to continue in their
preparation for the general crusade which, as had been
provided at the Lateran Council of 1215, was to be
undertaken in 1217. To procure the means necessary
for this colossal undertaking, the pope and the cardi-
nals were to contribute the tenth part, and all other
ecclesiastics the twentieth part, of their income for
three years. The bishops under the supervision of
the papal legates in the various countries were en-
trusted with the collection of these moneys. Hon-
orius III ordered the crusade to be preached in all the
churches of Christendom. Though the money thus
collected was considerable, it was by no means suffi-
cient for a general crusade as planned by Honorius
III. Moreover, in preaching the crusade the great
mistake was made of trying to gather as many cru-
saders as possible, without considering whether they
were fit for war.
The result was that cripples, old men, women, also robbers, thieves, adventurers, and others composed a great part of the crusaders. In some instances the uselessness of such soldiers was not thought of until they had been transported to distant seaports at public expense. Most rulers of Europe were engaged in wars of their own and could not leave their country for any length of time. Andrew II of Hungary and, somewhat later, a fleet of crusaders from the regions along the Lower Rhine finally departed for the Holy Land, took Damietta and a few other places in Egypt; but lack of unity among the Christians, also rivalry between the leaders and the papal legate Pelagius, to some extent perhaps also the incompetency of the latter, resulted in failure.
Honorius III was aware that there was only one man in Europe who could bring about the recovery of the Holy Land, and that man was his former pupil Frederick II of Germany. Like many other rulers, Frederick II had taken an oath to embark for the Holy Land in 1217. As long as his rival Otto IV was living, the pope did not urge him to fulfil his oath; when, however, his rival had died on 19 May, 1218, Honorius III insisted that he embark as soon as pos- sible and Frederick promised to set sail for the Holy Land on 24 June, 1219. Lie then obtained permission to postpone his departure repeatedly, first till 29 September, 1219, then successively till 21 March, 1220, 1 May, 1220, August, 1221, June, 1225, and finally, at the meeting of the pope and the emperor at San Germano on 25 July, 1225, till August, 1227. It must not be ascribed merely to weakness on the part of Honorius III that he allowed one postpone- ment after the other.
He knew that without the co-operation of the emperor a successful crusade was impossible and feared that by using harsh measures he would cause a complete break with the emperor and indefinitely destroy the possibility of a crusade. For the same reason he yielded to the emperor in many things which under different circumstances he would have strenu- ously opposed. Thus he reluctantly approved the election of Frederick's son Henry as King of the Romans, which practically united the Sicilian king- dom and the empire in one person; a union which by its very nature was detrimental to the papacy and which Honorius III had every reason to oppose. Hoping to hasten the departure of Frederick for the Holy Land, he crowned him emperor at Rome on 22 November, 1220. Finally, however, seeing that his extreme indulgence was only abused by the emperor for selfish purposes, he had recourse to severer meas- ures. The emperor's encroachment upon the papal rights in the appointment of bishops in Apulia, and his unworthy treatment of King John of Jerusalem, whom Honorius III had appointed governor over part of the papal patrimony, brought the tension between
