After the great emperors came the great Pope. Within four months of
the death of Henry VI, Celestine III had been succeeded by Innocent
III, under whom the visions of Gregory VII and Alexander III at last
became accomplished facts, the papal authority attained its highest
point of influence, and the empire, raised to such heights by
Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI, was reduced to a condition of
dependence upon it.

The new Pope had been Lothaire of Segni, a member of the noble Roman
house of Conti, who had studied law and theology at Paris and Bologna,
and had at an early age won for himself a many-sided reputation as a
jurist, a politician, and as a writer. The favor of his uncle, Clement
III, had made him cardinal before he was thirty, but under Celestine
III he kept in the background, disliked by the Pope, and himself
suspicious of the timid and temporizing old man. But on Celestine's
death on January 8, 1198, Lothaire, though still only thirty-seven
years of age, was at once hailed as his most fitting successor, as the
strong man who could win for the Church all the advantages that she
might hope to gain from the death of Henry VI. Nor did Innocent's
pontificate belie the promise of his early career.

Innocent III possessed a majestic and noble appearance, an unblemished
private character, popular manners, a disposition prone to sudden fits
of anger and melancholy, and a fierce and indomitable will. He brought
to his exalted position the clearly formulated theories of the
canonists as to the nature of the papal power, as well as the
overweening ambition, the high courage, the keen intelligence and the
perseverance and energy necessary to turn the theories of the schools
into matters of every-day importance.