Innocent II (born, Rome—died Sept. 24, 1143, Rome) was the pope from 1130 to 1143.
A cardinal by 1116, Innocent was appointed in 1122 by Pope Calixtus II as one of the ambassadors who drafted the Concordat of Worms, an agreement ending disputes between the pope and the Holy Roman emperor Henry V over the right of investiture; i.e., whether the papacy or temporal rulers had the right to install bishops and other clergy. In 1123 Gregorio became papal emissary in France. On the night of Pope Honorius II’s death (Feb. 13, 1130), a minority elected Gregorio (who took the name of Innocent II), while a majority soon after elected Cardinal Pietro Pierleoni as Anacletus II. Innocent was hastily consecrated, but by June 1130 Anacletus forced him to flee to France. The vindication of Innocent’s title owes its success to Archbishop St. Norbert of Magdeburg, Saxony, and to Abbot St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Champagne. Bernard swayed the French Church and also King Henry I of England to Innocent’s side. Norbert won over the German Church (October 1130) and the German king Lothar II/III.
In March 1131 Innocent met Lothar at Liège and induced him to fight Anacletus. The German army invaded Italy in August 1132 and by the following June occupied all of Rome except the area held by Anacletus’ faction. Innocent then crowned Lothar emperor and refused to revise the Concordat of Worms to give civil authorities the right to install clergy. But when Lothar left Italy, Innocent had to flee to Pisa, where he called a council to condemn Anacletus. Lothar reinvaded southern Italy (1136–37) and expelled Anacletus’ chief supporter, King Roger II of Sicily. After a quarrel with Innocent over the rulership of the region of Apulia, Lothar died (Dec. 3/4, 1137).
The death of Anacletus in January 1138 endangered Roger’s position, and, although a successor, Antipope Victor IV, was swiftly elected, Bernard persuaded Victor to resign on May 29, 1138. Innocent convoked the second Lateran Council in April 1139 to end the schism, excommunicate Roger, and sustain his own endorsement (made on Easter 1136) of King Stephen over Empress Matilda as rightful ruler of England. On July 22, 1139, Roger captured Innocent and on July 25 forced the Pope to recognize him as king of Sicily. The two then acknowledged each other’s titles in the same year.
Innocent confirmed the rule and customs of the Templars, one of the three orders of knighthood founded during the Crusades. At the Council of Sens (1140), Innocent supported Bernard’s prosecution of the theologian-philosopher Abbot Peter Abélard and his supporter, Arnold of Brescia, by condemning them as heretics. The remainder of his pontificate dealt chiefly with two struggles. He fought for church independence when the Romans established a commune with a senate free from papal authority. Innocent also placed France under the interdict—a denial of the sacraments—when King Louis VII of France refused to accept the papal choice for archbishop of Bourges.