Innocent II

• Type — Pope • Denomination — Catholic • Honorific Prefix — Pope • Name — Innocent II • Title — Bishop of Rome • Church — Catholic Church • Birth Name — Gregorio Papareschi • Term Start — 14 February 1130 • Term End — 24 September 1143 • Predecessor — Honorius II • Successor — Celestine II • Ordination — 22 February 1130 • Consecration — 23 February 1130 • Consecrated By — Giovanni Vitale • Cardinal — 1116 • Created Cardinal By — Paschal II • Birthplace — Rome, Papal States • Died — 24 September 1143 • Place of death — Rome, Papal States • Other — Innocent

Gregorio Papareschi came from a Roman family, probably of the rione Trastevere. Formerly a Cluniac monk, he was made cardinal deacon of Sant'Angelo in 1116 by Pope Paschal II. Gregorio was selected by Pope Callixtus II for various important and difficult missions, such as the one to Worms for the conclusion of the Concordat of Worms, the peace accord made with Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1122, and also the one that made peace with King Louis VI of France in 1123. In 1124, he became a close advisor to Pope Honorius II.

On the evening of 13 February 1130, Pope Honorius II died, and Gregorio was hastily elected as Pope Innocent II by a commission of six cardinals led by papal chancellor Haimeric. He was consecrated on 14 February, the following day. The other cardinals announced that Innocent had not been canonically elected—though the Bull of Nicholas II did not specify whether all the cardinals had to be present for the election to be valid—and chose Anacletus II, a Roman whose family were the enemy of Haimeric's supporters, the Frangipani. Anacletus' mixed group of supporters were powerful enough to take control of Rome while Innocent was forced to flee north.

Anacletus had control of Rome, so Innocent II took ship for Pisa, and thence sailed by way of Genoa to France, where the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux readily secured his cordial recognition by the clergy and the court. In October 1130, he was duly acknowledged by King Lothair III of Germany and his bishops at the synod of Würzburg. In January 1131, he also had a favourable interview with Henry I of England at Chartres. In August 1132, Lothar III undertook an expedition to Italy to set aside Anacletus as antipope and be crowned by Innocent. Anacletus and his supporters being in secure control of St. Peter's Basilica, the coronation ultimately took place in the Lateran Basilica (4 June 1133), but otherwise the expedition proved abortive. Innocent II invested Lothair as emperor and the territories belonging to Matilda of Tuscany in return for an annuity of 100 pounds of silver paid to the pope. After Lothar's hasty departure from Rome, Innocent fled to Pisa. In May 1135, Innocent convened the council of Pisa, which was attended by over one hundred clerics and abbots. Innocent II had the council declare Anacletus and his supporters excommunicated. The second expedition by Lothar III in 1136 was no more decisive in its results, and the protracted struggle between the rival pontiffs was terminated only by the death of Anacletus II on 25 January 1138.

At the Second Lateran council of April 1139, King Roger II of Sicily, Innocent II's most uncompromising foe, was excommunicated. Can. 29 of the Council banned the use of crossbows, as well as slings and bows, against Christians.

On 22 July 1139, at Galluccio, Roger II's son Roger III of Apulia ambushed the papal troops with a thousand knights and captured Innocent. On 25 July 1139, Innocent was forced to acknowledge the kingship and possessions of Roger with the Treaty of Mignano.

In his papal bull Omne Datum Optimum from March 1139, Innocent II had declared that the Knights Templar—a religious and military organization then twenty-one years old—should in the future be answerable only to the papacy. That same year he sent Alberic of Ostia to examine the conduct of the Latin Patriarch of Antioch establish ties with the Armenian Catholicos. The consequent Latin synod in Antioch, attended also by the Armenian Catholicos Gregory III, marked the symbolic beginning of Armenian-Latin high-level clerical contacts and according to Armenian sources Innocent sent Gregory a letter of greeting with a staff and pallium. On 25 September 1141, he wrote Catholicos Gregory III another long letter in which he asked him to cooperate with the Church of Rome and end the schism, which was achieved at the end of the century.

Innocent II died on 24 September 1143 and was succeeded by Pope Celestine II.