Crusades Biographies | Innocent III Biography

c. 1160
Anagni, Italy

June 16, 1216
Perugia, Italy

Pope

"I have decided...to convoke a general council, by means of which evils may be uprooted...morals reformed, heresies wiped out, the Faith strengthened princes and people won to the cause of aiding the Holy Land..."

—Pope Innocent III, calling for the Fifth Crusade at the Lateran Council in 1215; quoted at http://www.catholicism.org/OGP/pope_chapter7.htm.

The most powerful of the medieval popes (leaders of the Catholic Church), Innocent III was a strong and talented administrator who brought the church to the zenith, or highest point, of its political power. Using the threat of excommunication (expulsion from the...