that the distractions of these warring monarchs allowed Innocent III to fashion the crusade to his own design. Yet, so far from regarding these divisions as a hindrance, Innocent exploited them as an opportunity. He began Quia Maior by insisting that the transcendent cause of the Holy Land demanded the active support of all Christian faithful on pain of damnation. This required a decisive turning away from material concerns to follow Christ. To assist such a commitment, the goods and property of crucesignati would receive the protection of the church, thus reinforcing the moral imperative to resolve temporal conflicts with practical security. Innocent placed the resolution of civil conflict at the heart of the preaching of the new crusade. Crusading had traditionally been associated with management of disputes, witnessed by the persistent links with the Peace and Truce of God throughout the twelfth century. It provided a context within which disputing parties could resolve their differences without loss of face or advantage, as, notoriously, between the Angevins and Philip II. Innocent, with characteristic intellectual clarity, administrative verve, and the experience of fifteen years as pope, now used this passive tool as a weapon to impose ecclesiastical arbitration on material as well as spiritual problems. This was no accident, rather a recognized property of crusading in the academic circle around the pope. One of the leading preachers of the Fifth Crusade, the Englishman Robert of Courcon, legate to France from 1213, explained in an academic treatise how ‘recently’ a number of barons had used the crusade to remove themselves from an awkward choice of rebellion or disinheritance, probably a reference to the counts of Flanders, Blois and Perche after the collapse of their alliance with Richard I against their lord Philip II in 1199.16
Quia Maior established a comprehensive practical as well as religious framework for a new crusade. After presenting the universal moral obligation, the continuing scandal of Christians in Muslim captivity and the immediate crisis threatening the Holy Land, the pope announced an unequivocal plenary indulgence for all who took the cross and served or sent proxies at their own expense and to the proxies themselves: ‘full forgiveness of their sins of which they make truthful oral confession with contrite hearts truly repented of’. Familiar temporal privileges were rehearsed: ecclesiastical protection of crusaders’ property; moratorium on debts to Christians and their cancellation if owed to Jews. Citing his authority to ‘speak as Vicar of Christ for Christ’, Innocent instructed the clergy, civil communities and non-crusading lay magnates to supply troops for three years out of their resources and demanded naval help from maritime cities. The pope promised that he would also contribute. Income from clerical benefices could be pledged for three years. Trade with Muslims was banned, as was consorting with pirates. The efficacy of the practical rested on the penitential. Special monthly processions were to be accompanied by the preaching of the cross. Prayers for the Holy Land were to be supported by fasting and almsgiving with special chests placed in churches to receive pious donations. A new intercession was to be inserted in the mass. More controversial, but no less pragmatic, was Innocent’s invitation ‘that anyone who wishes, except those bound by religious profession, may take the cross in such a way that his vow may be commuted [i.e. replaced by another penance], redeemed [i.e. dispensed in return for a cash payment equivalent to the cost of crusading] or deferred by apostolic mandate when urgent or evident expediency demands it’. Poverty, incapacity, illness, age, gender or legitimate prior calls no longer prevented the enjoyment of crusade indulgence, a measure at once reducing the delays in checking suitability of putative crucesignati and increasing their numbers and social range. To focus attention and resources on the Holy Land expedition, Innocent cancelled the crusade indulgences for those fighting the Moors in Spain or the heretics in Languedoc who came from outside those regions. Knowing from the experience of the previous quarter of a century how long recruitment could take, Innocent preferred to wait until recruits had taken the cross before setting a deadline for the crusade muster.
Quia Maior operated within a wider policy. Simultaneously, Innocent summoned a general council of the church to meet in 1215 to discuss church reform and the crusade, and instituted elaborate systems to preach the cross. Papal control was central. The pope himself took the lead in Italy. Legates were appointed for France and Scandinavia. In Hungary, each bishop was authorized to preach the cross. Elsewhere, panels with legatine powers were established in every province to delegate the work of recruiting to deputies. Preachers were instructed to use the details of Quia Maior as the basis of their message. To avoid the controversy that swamped Fulk of Neuilly before the Fourth Crusade, they were to refuse money for themselves and, reminiscent of the bishop of Osma and Dominic Guzman in Languedoc, to travel modestly and set a good example by sober behaviour. On the ground, preachers kept written records of those they recruited and were ordered by the pope to deposit any crusade donations with local religious houses before rendering annual returns to the papal Curia so Innocent could assess the progress of the vast operation.17 The pope maintained close scrutiny over his agents across Europe. To the dean of Speyer’s request for clarification, Innocent reiterated the need to deflect Languedoc crusaders to the Holy Land, to allow recruits to take the cross despite their wives’ opposition, and to follow the encyclical’s radical extension of vow redemption and commutation, which was clearly arousing some concern. At his request, Bishop Conrad of Regensberg was allowed a grander entourage than Innocent had proposed. He was also permitted to absolve certain categories of criminals provided they took the cross. The abbot of Rommersdorf in Austria compiled a collection of Quia Maior and other papal letters as a reference tool while other preachers, such as James of Vitry, descanted on Innocent’s themes.18
While the preaching campaign began, Innocent prepared the diplomatic ground, once more aided by events. John of England’s submission to the pope in 1213, the defeat of his allies by Philip II of France at Bouvines in 1214 and the subsequent English civil war prompted the king to take the cross on Ash Wednesday (4 March) 1215, using his new status in Magna Carta three months later to postpone settling disputed judgements from his predecessors’ reigns.19 John’s intentions probably owed more to politics than penance, adopting the cross may have been an attempt to facilitate a settlement with his enemies, many of whom were or were about to become crucesignati. The commitment to the crusade among the English propertied classes reached levels similar to the Third Crusade. The context of civil war also influenced Frederick II of Germany and Sicily’s decision to take the cross in the same year, a move encouraged by papal agents now actively supporting his cause.20 Further east, Leopold VI of Austria and King Andrew of Hungary were already crucesignati. Such was his determination to involve the whole of Christendom, Innocent even called on the Venetians to honour their still unfulfilled and unabsolved crusade vow of 1202.21
The array of monarchs, princes and cities added to a sense of united purpose when the 1,300 ecclesiastical delegates from all parts of Latin Christendom from the Atlantic to Syria met at the Lateran Palace in Rome in November 1215. These included most of those appointed to preach the cross, the Latin Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem, and representatives from the Maronite church in Lebanon (in communion with Rome since 1181) and of the Melkite (i.e. Syrian and Egyptian Greek Orthodox) archbishop of Alexandria, with whom the pope had maintained a regular correspondence over the conditions of Frankish prisoners in Egypt.22 The business of the council was Christian renewal, reform and the crusade, regarded by Innocent as different aspects of the same religious enterprise. The decisions concerning the crusade suggest some hard bargaining, with the pope not necessarily getting his way. Innocent’s defence of Raymond VI of Toulouse failed to convince the council, who condemned the count in favour of Simon of Montfort, whose activities had long since given the pope pause. More general papal anxieties over the legal proprieties of the war against heretics were seemingly brushed aside in the council’s third decree, which established their canonical legitimacy as attracting the equivalent indulgences and privileges ‘as is granted to those who go to the aid of the Holy Land’.23 This may mark a victory for the bellicose French hierarchy, which had consistently been more robust in prosecuting the Languedoc campaigns than the more legally fastidious pope. The reverse may have been true regarding the plans for the Holy Land crusade, with the implementation of the provisions in Quia Maior regarding vow redemptions, debt and tax exemption causing disquiet in French official circles as being too radical.
The council’s final decree (no. 71), Ad Liberandam, largely endorsed Quia Maior but with additions, modifications and omissions.24 It established the ‘sanctum propositum’, the ‘negotium Jesu Christi’ in canon law. After two years of active preaching and recruitment, the tone was urgent. The muster was fixed for June 1217, significantly in the ports of the Sicilian regno, the lands of the new papal protege and imperial candidate Frederick II. For those intending to take a land route, a legate would be appointed. Clerics were encouraged to participate and allowed to fund themselves from their benefices. The pope contributed 30,000 pounds and a ship for the contingent from the city of Rome. Tax exemption was clarified, although behind the scenes concessions may have been made to Philip II, who already in March 1215 had published an ordinance restricting crusaders’ legal immunities in accordance with
