2500

RRR: 
2500
YEAR: 
1245
text: 
April 30. Lyons. Pope Innocent IV writes to the patriarch of Antioch [Alberto Roberti], relating that he received and understood his letter. In the pope’s and cardinals’ presence the patriarch once narrated how, when he had to pass by the ‘prince’ [Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen] when coming to the Apostolic See, he found him eager for peace and ready to observe the peace that he and the Church accepted the previous year and to fulfil other conditions set by the pope with the advice of some of the cardinals. The pope assigned no one to deal with this between the Church and the ‘prince’, but he told the patriarch when he left the Apostolic See that the Church would accept it if the ‘prince’ wished to put the above into effect and if the patriarch wrote to the pope about the ‘prince’s’ wishes. The pope enjoined on certain persons through a letter he sent them via the pope’s familiar I[acopo] de Bojano, and in a letter to the patriarch, that if the ‘prince’ restored the land of the Church, they were to receive the land in the pope’s name. The patriarch obtained nothing at all certain in this matter. Rather the ‘prince’ declared himself ready to compromise on the business of the Lombards with the pope and certain others as arbiters, accepted the Peace of Constance, which he said he had always accepted, and asked the pope to restore to his grace princes and other clerics and laymen of the empire, about whom no mention is made in that peace nor does the pope remember dealing with them with the patriarch. Although the ‘prince’ once asked the pope for this restoration to grace, he was unable to obtain it, since the pope has no intention at all to remit the spiritual punishments, neither for the clerics nor for the laymen. So the pope is quite amazed. Nevertheless, the pope desires peace and wishes to avoid discord, so he would still accept it if the ‘prince’ strives to observe the aforesaid peace, restores to liberty the captive ecclesiastics and other men who adhere to the Church and whom he detains – otherwise they will hardly have peace – and does not delay in restoring the Church’s land, in such a way that news of the release of the captives and the restoration of the land reaches the pope before the Council [Lyon I], which the pope cannot postpone.
Sources: 
ASV, Reg. Vat. 21, f. 205v, no. 653; Innocent IV, Les registres, 1:207-8, no. 1359

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