8
January 1198 A.D. Mr.
Celestine III (Giacinto Bobone) Dies—Italy’s 175th; Deacon-Presbyter-Bishop in 1 Day
Presto-Op; Crowned Henry IV
Emperor; Claims Sicily
Temporalities; Adjudicates Varied
Matrimonial Issues for European Royals
Mr. Celestine
III
(GIACINTO
BOBONE)
The first of the Roman Orsini to ascend the Chair
of Peter, b. about 1106; d. at Rome, 8 January, 1198. He
was forty-seven years a cardinal when,
in his eighty-fifth year, he was elected (30
March, 1191) successor of Clement III;
being only a deacon he was ordained priest (13
April) and consecrated bishop the
next day, respectively Holy Saturday and Easter. The following day he anointed and crowned King Henry VI of Germany as
emperor, and as empress his queen Constantia.
The king was then on his way to Southern Italy to
enforce against Tancred the
claims of Constantia to the
crown of the two Sicilies. The Roman people,
however, did not permit the afore-mentioned solemnities to
take place until both pope and
king had aided them to satisfy their wrath against
the neighbouring Tusculum.
The town was levelled with the ground and abandoned to the
savage vengeance of the Romans. The aged pope has
been blamed for this act of
cruelty, in this so unlike his predecessor Innocent II who
withstood (1142) a similar passionate insistence of the Romans for
the destruction of Tibur (Tivoli).
The responsibility, however, rests chiefly on the emperor, whose blood-thirsty Italian career
was thus becomingly inaugurated. In spite of the pope the
emperor proceeded southward to make good his
claims to Sicily, but was defeated and
compelled to retire, leaving the empress a prisoner of Tancred,
who freed her at the papal petition.
The aged Celestine astonished
many by his longanimity in dealing with the young and violent Henry
VI who in Germany surpassed
his predecessors in cruelty and oppression of the churches.
The pope was
also slow and cautious in threatening Henry with excommunication for
his imprisonment of King Richard the Lion-Hearted whom Henry had caused to be
seized (1192) by Duke Leopold of Austria, and
delivered to himself, as Richard was on the way back to England, nor
was the English king
set free until he had paid a great ransom (£100,000). It was a violation of the law of
nations that a younger and more vigorous pope would
not have so long tolerated. Only in 1193 were the duke and his associates excommunicated and an
attempt made to compel restitution of the
ransom. Shortly after, on the death of Tancred (1194) Henry
VI again
crossed the Alps, resolved to finally compass the union of the German Crown with
that of the Two Sicilies. Amid incredible cruelties he accomplished his
purpose, defied the rights of the pope as
overlord of Sicily, deceived the pope with
vain promises of a crusade, and
would probably have hastened by a generation the memorable conflict of Rome with
his son Frederick II had
not death carried off the cruel and lawless king, 28 Sept., 1197, in his
thirty-sixth year, not, however, before he had induced the pope to
acknowledge the aforesaid infant Frederick as
King of the Two Sicilies. Celestine himself
soon passed away, in the ninety-second year of his age. He showed more
resolution in dealing with other princes of Europe, particularly in
defence of the ecclesiastical marriage laws. He induced King
Alfonso IX of Leon to abandon his
project of an incest union
with a Portuguese princess,
and defended with vigour the validity of the marriage of
Queen Ingeburg with Philip Augustus of France, to
whom he refused a divorce,
while he declared invalid the divorce accorded
to Philip by the bishops of his kingdom.
A serious crusade was
the constant ideal of Pope Celestine; he confirmed the
new military Order of Teutonic Knights (1191),
and favoured greatly the Knights Templar and
the Hospitallers. St. Malachy of Armagh, St. Bernward of Hildesheim, St.
John Gualbert, and St. Ubaldus of Gubbio were canonized by him
(See HENRY VI.).
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