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Clement III (2)

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Pope (Paolo, cardinal bishop of Rome), was a native of Rome. He was chosen pope at Pisa on the 19th of Dec. 1187, in the place of Gregory VIII, who had died in the same city two days before. The chief concern of the new pope was the speedy organization of a third crusade, as the news of the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin (Oct. 3d, 1187) had just been received. He wrote at once to all the Christian princes, and succeeded in calling forth an unprecedented enthusiasm. The aged emperor Frederick Barbarossa (67 years old), who had had a violent conflict with the predecessor of Clement on account of the possessions of the Countess Matilda, made peace with the pope and took the cross. Peace was also restored between Venice and the king of Hungary, and between the king of France and the king of England, and all these states, joined by Leopold of Austria and others, were induced to take part in the crusade. The pope had the grief of learning the death of Frederick in the River Kalicadnus, and the dissensions between the princes besieging Acco, but he did not live to see the unfortunate end of the crusade.

Clement again secured for the popes the secular rule over the city of Rome, which during forty-nine years had been left by the popes. Tired of their civil wars, the Romans conceded to Clement the right of scvereign. A conflict with the king of Scotland, who had appointed of his own accord a bishop for St. Andrew's, terminated favorably to the pope. The king yielded when the pope threatened with the interdict. In reward for this concession, the pope (by a bull of March 13, 1189) exempted all Scotland from the jurisdiction of the archbishop of York, made it an immediate dependency of the papal see, and provided that henceforth no one should be a papal legate in Scotland who was not either a Scotchman or an officer of the Church in Rome. On the death of King William II of Sicily (Nov. 1, 1189), a dangerous conflict arose between the son of Frederick Barbarossa, Henry (subsequently emperor Henry VI), whose wife was the nearest relation to the late king, and the pope, who claimed feudal rights over Sicily, and hastened to invest with its government Tancred, an illegitimate son of duke Roger of Sicily. Henry, after the death of his father, was marching upon Rome, when Clement died, on March 25, 1191. The personal life of this pope is said to have been blameless. Seven letters and many decrees issued by Clement are given by Mansi (22, 543-574). — Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 2, 730; Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lexicon, 2, 591; Neander, Ch. Hist. 4, 417; Gieseler, Ch. Hist. per. 3. div. 3. chap. 1, § 53.