How Hildebrand paved the way for these reforms during the pontificates of Nicholas II.
And Alexander III., achieved the widest extension of the power entrusted to them, and in many respects their pontificates may be regarded as a preparation for and adumbration of the pontificate of Innocent III.
Lacked vigour, and their pontificates were too brief to allow them to pursue a strong policy against the Germanic The Papacy imperialism.
Under the pontificates of Innocent III.
- This period comprises 13 pontificates, all of short duration (three or four years at the most, and some only a few months), with the exception of that of Boniface VIII., who was pope for nine years.
The European state of mind no longer lent itself to such enterprises, and, moreover, under such brief pontificates, the attenuated Roman power could not expect to succeed where Innocent III.
- Monographs dealing expressly with the pontificates of this period are scarce.
The eleventh contains the lives of all the bishops in order, and includes the chief events during their pontificates; the twelfth deals in the same way with the archbishops, not forgetting the writer himself.
His numerous works include histories of Arianism, the iconoclastic controversy, the Greek schism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and of the pontificates of Leo I.
