Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/514

 464 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE cause the pope had aroused the jealousy of other prominent Roman families by the favors which he bestowed upon his brother, and because the commune as a whole had been alarmed by a gigantic tower which Richard had built. In the Patrimony of St. Peter, as the territory immediately north and south of Rome was called, Innocent succeeded in establishing something like order by 1207, when he held at Viterbo an assembly of the higher clergy, feudal lords, and magistrates of the communes throughout the Patrimony. But his efforts to exert any real control over the towns of Umbria, Ancona, and Romagna were quite unsuccessful. They continued to revolt, to elect whom they pleased as officials, to permit party strife within their walls, and to fight with neighboring towns, until the pope gave up in despair and turned over his interests in the entire region to a lay lord as a fief. Innocent was displeased that the constitution of the Tus- can League sanctioned by his predecessor made no mention of any subjection to the Papacy, but he was unable to secure any real improvement in their relations to him. Moreover, the great Ghibelline city, Pisa, refused to join the league, and by its hold on the coasts of Sardinia pre- vented Innocent from making good his claim to that island. In Lombardy the communes displayed an increasingly secular spirit, and Innocent had to make use of excom- munications and interdicts against some of them because of their support of heresy or attacks upon the rights and prop- erty of the Church or the persons of the clergy. But the various cities of Lombardy were too busy fighting one another to pay much attention to the pope and his thunders. On the other hand, Venice turned a whole crusade to its own profit. The Fourth Crusade, which occurred during Innocent's pontificate, was participated in chiefly by French knights, The Fourth although their chosen leader was an Italian, Boniface, the Marquis of Montferrat, in north- western Italy. The crusaders determined to take the sea route, and Venice agreed, in return for a cash payment and