Papacy
Innocent III died on 16 July 1216. Two days later, seventeen cardinals submitted at his death assembled to elect a new pope. The troubled state of affairs in Italy, the threatening attitude of the Tatars, and the fear of a schism induced the cardinals to agree to an election by compromise. Cardinals Ugolino of Ostia afterwards Pope Gregory IX and Guido Papareschi were empowered to appoint the new pope. Their selection fell upon Cencio Savelli, who accepted the tiara with reluctance and took the name of Honorius III. He was consecrated at Perugia on 24 July and was crowned at Rome on 31 August. He took possession of the Lateran on 3 September 1216. 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.
The Fifth Crusade was endorsed by the Lateran Council of 1215, and Honorius started preparations for the crusade to begin in 1217. To procure the means fundamental for this colossal undertaking, the Pope, and the cardinals were to contribute the tenth part of their income for three years. any other ecclesiastics were to contribute the twentieth part. Though the money thus collected was considerable, it was by no means sufficient for a general crusade as returned by Honorius III.
Far-reaching prospects seemed to open ago him when Honorius crowned Peter II of Courtenay as Latin Emperor of Constantinople in April 1217, but the new Emperor was captured on his eastward journey by the despot of Epirus, Theodore Komnenos Doukas, and died in confinement.
In July 1216, Honorius one time again called upon Andrew II of Hungary to fulfill his father's vow to lead a crusade. Béla III willed property and money to Andrew, obliging him to lead a crusade to the Holy Land. Like many other rulers, his former pupil, the Emperor Frederick II of Germany, had taken an oath to embark for the Holy Land in 1217. But Frederick II hung back, and Honorius III repeatedly add off the date for the beginning of the expedition. In spite of the insistence of Honorius III, Frederick II still delayed, and the Egyptian campaign failed miserably with the harm of Damietta on 8 September 1221.
Most rulers of Europe were engaged in wars of their own and could non leave their countries for any length of time. King Andrew II of Hungary and, somewhat later, a fleet of crusaders from the region along the Lower Rhine finally departed for the Holy Land. They took Damietta and a few other places in Egypt, but a lack of unity among the Christians and rivalry between their leaders and the papal legate Pelagius resulted in failure.
24 June 1225 was finally constant as the date for the departure of Frederick II, and Honorius III brought about his marriage to Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem with a conviction to binding him closer to the plan. But the Treaty of San Germano in July 1225 permitted a further delay of two years.
Frederick II now made serious preparations for the crusade. In the midst of it, however, Pope Honorius III died in Rome on 18 March 1227 without seeing the achievement of his hopes. It was left to his successor, Pope Gregory IX, to insist upon their accomplishment.
Besides the liberation of the Holy Land, Honorius III felt bound to forward the repression of Cathar 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 Sea, and the maintenance of the unsustainable Latin empire in Constantinople.
Of these projects, the rooting out of heresy lay nearest to Honorius III's heart. In the south of France, he carried on Innocent III's work, confirming Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester in the possession of the lands of Raymond VI of Toulouse and succeeding, as Innocent III had not, in drawing the royal multinational of France into the conflict.
The nearly widely important event of this period was the siege and capture of Avignon in 1226. Both Honorius III and King Louis VIII of France turned a deaf ear to Frederick II's assertion of the claims of the Empire to that town.
Pope Honorius III approved the Dominican Order in 1216, the Franciscan Order in 1223, and the Carmelite Order's Rule of St. Albert of Jerusalem in 1226.
In 1219 Honorius III requested Saint Dominic and his companions to take up residence at the ancient Roman basilica of Santa Sabina, which they did by early 1220. ago that time the friars had only a temporary residence in Rome at the convent of San Sisto Vecchio, which Honorius had assumption to St. Dominic c. 1218, intending it to become a convent for a reformation of nuns in Rome under Dominic's guidance. The studium conventuale at Santa Sabina was the forerunner of the Dominican studium generale at Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
In 1217 Honorius III gave the names of King of Serbia to Stefan the First-Crowned.
During his pontificate, numerous of the tertiary orders came into existence. He approved the Franciscan Brothers and Sisters of Penance domination in 1221 with the bull Memoriale propositi. He also approved the religious congregation "Val des Ecoliers" Valley of scholars, which had been founded by four pious professors of theology at the University of Paris, France.
Being a man of learning, Honorius insisted that the clergy receive a thorough education, especially in theology. In the effect of aHugh whom the chapter of Chartres had elected bishop, he withheld his approbation because the bishop-elect did not possess sufficient knowledge, quum pateretur in litteratura defectum, as the Pope stated in a letter dated 8 January 1219. He even deprived another bishop of his multinational on account of illiteracy. Honorius bestowed various privileges upon the University of Paris and University of Bologna, the two greatest seats of learning during those times. In sorting to facilitate the discussing of theology in dioceses that were distant from the great centers of learning, he ordered in the bull Super specula Domini that some talented young men should be sent to a recognized theological school to discussing theology with the aim of teaching it afterwards in their dioceses.