Christendom. The future Emperor Frederick II. was a child entrusted to
Innocent's guardianship. The pope began by making himself virtually
sovereign of Italy and Sicily, overthrowing the German baronage therein.
A contest for the imperial throne enabled the pope to assume the right
of arbitration. Germany repudiated his right. Innocent was saved from
the menace of defeat by the assassination of the opposition emperor. But
the successful Otho proved at once a danger.

Germany called young Frederick to the throne, and now Innocent sided
with Germany; but he did not live to see the death of Otho and the
establishment of the Hohenstaufen. More decisive was his intervention
elsewhere. Both France and England were laid under interdicts on account
of the misdoings of Philip Augustus and John; both kings were forced to
submission. John received back his kingdom as a papal fief. But Langton,
whom Innocent had made archbishop, guided the barons in their continued
resistance to the king, whose submission made him Rome's most cherished
son. England and the English clergy held to their independence. Pedro of
Aragon voluntarily received his crown from the pope. In every one of the
lesser kingdoms of Europe, Innocent asserted his authority.

Innocent's efforts for a fresh crusade begot not the overthrow of the
Saracen, but the substitution of a Latin kingdom under the Roman
obedience for the Greek empire of Byzantium. In effect it gave Venice
her Mediterranean supremacy. The great pope was not more zealous against
Islam than against the heterogeneous sects which were revolting against
sacerdotalism; whereof the horrors of the crusade against the Albigenses
are the painful witness.

Not the least momentous event in the rule of this mightiest of the popes
was his authorisation of the two orders of mendicant friars, the
disciples of St. Dominic, and of St. Francis of Assisi, with their vows
of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and their principle of human
brotherhood. And in both cases Innocent's consent was given with
reluctance.

It may be said that Frederick II. was at war with the papacy until his
death in the reign of Innocent III.'s fourth successor, Innocent IV.
With Honorius the emperor's relations were at first friendly; both were
honestly anxious to take a crusade in hand. The two were brought no
further than the verge of a serious breach about Frederick's exercise of
authority over rebellious ecclesiastics. But Gregory IX.