Innocent’s Ambivalence

This chapter focuses on the correspondence of Pope Innocent III, his interlocutors, and his successors in order to understand more fully the conditions that gave rise to the first papal pronouncements asserting that Greek theological error was so egregious that it warranted violence, occupation, and larceny. The subjugation of the schismatic Greeks may have provided certain opportunities for those eager to assert the supremacy of the papacy as the governing body of the Church, but the use of military force to achieve and sustain Greek subjugation also called into question the integrity of the crusading endeavor and, more importantly, it upended previous assumptions regarding the boundaries of the Christian community. The events surrounding the Fourth Crusade and the subsequent maintenance of the Latin territory in the Greek East triggered a striking ambivalence in papal articulations of whether and to what extent the Greeks were “Christian” in the proper sense. As papal rhetoric gradually moved toward a more hostile characterization, the papacy became more willing to authorize a number of colonial enterprises previously inconceivable. These include violence against Greek Christians, the permanent settlement of Byzantine territory, and the extraction of Byzantine treasure.