The register for the second and third pontifical years (February 1199 to February 1201) holds the letters that set the eastern stage for 1200: the exchange with Kaloyan of Bulgaria opened in December 1199 and continued through 1200 over union with Rome and a crown, letters to Vukan of Zeta and to Stefan of Serbia, letters to Alexios III and the patriarch John Kamateros pressing for church union and help for the crusade, the preaching commissions and the legation of Peter Capuano, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond and Leo of Armenia, letters to Aimery of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and the French interdict over Ingeborg. Each letter carries its date and shows what Rome knew and wanted. The papal view is partisan and often rests on reports months old.
About this source
- Title
- Regesta Innocentii III papae
- Author
- Innocent III (Lotario dei Conti di Segni) and the papal chancery
- Author's dates
- about 1160 to 16 July 1216; pope from 8 January 1198
- Written
- 1198 onwards, year by year
- Language
- Latin
- Covers
- 1198 to 1216
- Kind
- Register
The Patrologia reprints Baluze's text with its gaps and misdatings; the Austrian critical edition (Hageneder and others) is the standard and is not free. The Bulgarian and Serbian letters are also edited by Duichev (1942). English exists only for selected letters (Cheney and Semple 1953; Andrea, Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade, 2000), all in copyright.
Where to read it
Editions
- J. P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina 214 (Paris, 1855): Regestorum libri we to III, 1198 to 1200
- J. P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina 215 (Paris, 1855): Regestorum libri IV onwards, 1201 to 1208
- O. Hageneder and others (eds), Die Register Innocenz' III., vols 1 to 3 (Graz, Rome and Vienna, 1964 to 1993), the critical edition for 1198 to 1201 (not freely online)