Innocent III (February 22, 1161 – July 16, 1216) was the Roman Catholic Pope (reigned from January 8, 1198 to July 16, 1216).
He studied theology at the University of Paris and studied theological theory behind closed doors. He was elected Pope in 1198. During his reign, the power of the Holy See reached its peak in history, actively participating in political struggles in various European countries and forcing the kings of England, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, and other countries to submit.
He once launched the Fourth Crusade, suppressed the heretic Albigists, approved the establishment of the Catholic Dominican and Franciscan orders, and presided over the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, promulgating the doctrine of the Eucharist variant.

Elected Pope
Innocent III, Pope of Rome. Formerly known as Giovanni Rotario de Conti. The son of Count Trasimone in the city of Anani, Italy.
He has studied theology and ecclesiastical law in Paris and Bologna.
In 1190, he was appointed as a cardinal.
In 1198, she was elected as the Empress of the Church, inheriting Gregory VII's views on religious authority, believing that the Pope was the representative of God in the world, and that the Emperor and the King's attendants belonged to the Pope, who granted secular power. He was committed to establishing a unified empire of Christian feudal theocracy in Europe.
expand
In 1210, he took advantage of the competition for the throne between the Hohenstaufen and Welf families to provoke a civil war in Germany, repelling German influence in Italy, reclaiming the papal territories previously occupied by German and Italian feudal lords, and consolidating the papal rule within the territories.
He took advantage of the young age of Frederick II of the House of Hohenstaufen, King of Sicily, to rule the Kingdom of Sicily as a guardian; He intervened in the relationship between England and France, taking advantage of the opposition of the English princes to King John, forcing him to submit to the Pope and pay his annual tribute.
Innocent III was also the initiator of multiple Crusades. In 1207, he organized a crusade to suppress the Albigists, setting a precedent for the Holy See to use force to suppress heretics.

educational administration
In terms of church affairs, he established a system of appointment and removal of clergy under the sole authority of the Pope.
In 1215, he presided over the Fourth Lateran Council and promulgated the doctrine of Eucharist variation and a series of church reform regulations.
With the support of Innocent, there emerged within the Catholic Church a group of mendicant monks who proclaimed poverty, with the main factions being the Franciscan and Dominican orders. He also strengthened the heterodox referee's office and appointed a Dominican scholar to preside over it.
The reign of Innocent III was the peak of papal power, and the influence of the Vatican played a crucial role in Europe at that time.

background
Since the 8th century when the dwarf Pippin gave a country to the Pope, this Papal state has become one of the checks and balances in Europe.
In the 1000th year after the birth of Jesus, the power and influence of the Papal State gradually reached its peak. Gregory VII made a series of efforts to elevate the status of the Pope and once forced German Emperor Henry IV to kneel in the snow for three days and three nights; Urban II instigated the First Crusade with his eloquent tongue, becoming the spiritual core of the entire Western Europe during this crazy era.
But what brought all of this to the pinnacle was Innocent III, known as the "Emperor of Ten Thousand Emperors".
Character Introduction
Innocent III, originally named Senny Lothair, was born into a noble Roman family with German ancestry.
He studied theology and church law, wrote the book "On the Poor Conditions of Man", and later became a senior member of the Vatican through his uncle, Pope Clement III. At the age of 38, he was finally elected as the supreme leader of the Roman spiritual world.
He claimed to be an existence between gods and humans, located below gods and above humans, playing the role of communication between gods and humans. He said, "The Pope is the sun, and the secular king is the moon." (This sentence was originally said by Gregory VII and is a famous medieval theory of the sun and moon.) "If a king cannot sincerely serve as an agent of Christ, he cannot govern his country correctly." "The king has physical power, and the priests have spiritual power. Since the spirit governs the body, the Pope should also be higher than the king."
These statements were a proclamation from Innocent III to wage war on secular kings, but he did not become the most influential ruler in world history as a result. Similar statements actually existed before him. He was included in the "100 Emperors Who Influenced the World Ranking" mainly due to his resolute actions as a result.

reform
Innocent III was the first to implement centralization within the Papal States, utilizing the subtle relationship between the noble princes of Rome and the Papal States, as well as threats from Germany, to make them submit to his authority. He adjusted and expanded the papal court institutions, dispatching cardinals to supervise churches in various regions (prior to this, the supervisory functions of papal envoys were concurrently held by local archbishops). Bishops in various regions must also supervise their dioceses and monasteries, and replace those who are incompetent at any time, forming a tight system of the Church system in Western Europe under the control of the Pope.
In 1199, Innocent III first taxed the entire Church of Western Europe, and this system was later fixed, becoming the "eleven taxes" that oppressed the people. The Pope's waist bulged, and he had more confidence in speaking and acting.
contribution
Innocent III's greatest contribution to Christianity was the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
This is one of the most important religious conferences since the Nicaean Conference during the time of Constantine, providing many explanations for the norms that a devout Christian should abide by. The most important of these is the provision of seven Christian sacraments, including baptism, coming of age confirmation, wedding, mass, repentance, consecration, and final anointing. Each believer should confess to the priest at least once a year and hold a Mass.
Like his predecessors, Innocent III actively intervened in German affairs. As a politician without an army in his hands, his weapon was not only to expel the opponent's religious affiliation, but more importantly, to use diplomatic tactics to win over one side and strike the other, benefiting himself from the situation.

When Innocent III first ascended the throne, he coincided with the fierce competition for the throne between the Hohenstaufen and Welf families in Germany. Due to the Hohenstaufen family's territory in southern Italy, Innocent III supported the Welf family in order to prevent the unification of southern Italy and Germany under the same monarch. In this 12 year long war, the real big winner was the Pope behind the scenes. He used the promises of both sides to seize places such as Spoleto and Ancona, making the Papal State reach the lower reaches of the Po River to the north and the Naples border to the south, which can be said to be extremely prosperous for a time.
But when Otto IV of the Welf family, supported by Innocent, ascended to the throne, the new emperor immediately turned his back and refused to acknowledge the benefits the Pope had gained in the war, even preparing to meet in battle. So, Innocent carried out Frederick II, an orphan of the Hohenstaufen family who had been adopted as his godson by him (later known as Emperor Frederick II), and formed an alliance with King Philip II of France, finally annihilating the treacherous Otto IV in the Battle of Bouvain. Frederick II, with the support of Innocent, ascended to the throne after promising to renounce the Sicilian throne and embark on a crusade to the east to the Pope.
At the same time, King John of England (also known as the Landless King) blatantly defied the Pope on multiple matters, particularly with intense conflicts over the appointment power of the Archbishop of Canterbury. So, in 1207, the Pope excommunicated the Landless King from Christianity and excluded England from the Christian community for a period of six years. Innocent was also prepared to support King Philip II's attack on England, but the Landless King was finally forced to surrender and accepted the Pope's selection as Archbishop, paying tribute to the Pope.

negative effect
The political landscape established by Innocent III in Western Europe has long been submerged by the aftermath of history, but his policy of persecution of pagans and the resulting traditions have had a lasting impact in history. Under the banner of a kind God, Innocent III committed all sorts of inhumane acts.
The most typical example is his persecution of the "Clean Faction" (also known as the Abilite) in southern France. The Puritans are Christian ascetics who believe in the dualism of good and evil. When they are classified as heretics, they suffer the ultimate calamity. The Holy War Legion organized by the Pope captured the center of the Clean Party, the city of Bezier, and immediately launched a massacre, killing more than 20000 people. In Minerva, over 100 clean faction leaders were burned to death at the stake.
Shortly after the death of Innocent III, his nephew Gregory IX, who succeeded the Pope, founded the Inquisition and declared that persecuting pagans was one of the duties of the Holy See. The practice of burning pagans to death by fire, founded by Innocent III, was also followed, and the stake later became a symbol of martyrdom for countless martyrs who adhered to the truth and did not blindly follow the Holy See.
In 1202, Innocent III launched the Fourth Crusade, the most ridiculous of all Crusades. The Crusaders did not reach the Holy Land to fight against the pagans, but instead raped and abducted their Christian brothers in Constantinople. This caused the Byzantine Empire to be interrupted for 57 years. He also organized the Children's Crusade, which resulted in over 30000 children becoming new products in the North African slave market.

Innocent III's political role was equivalent to that of a monarch balancing the offshore balance of European powers, and his papal identity gave him a deeper influence on history than secular monarchs.
Innocent III was able to exert tremendous influence in history. In addition to strengthening the power of the Pope through church reform, his main weapons were inciting religious fanaticism, using the power of excommunication, and cleverly utilizing conflicts between secular monarchs to reap the greatest benefits. In fact, amidst the complex and chaotic political order in medieval Europe, the existence of a Pope with the power to exert checks and balances was still very reasonable.