‘Our Lord Hugo’: Gregory IX Before the Pontificate

Coinciding with the pontificates of Innocent III (1198–1216) and Honorius III (1216–1227), Hugo’s cardinalate provided a period of diplomatic and practical experience as both advocate and papal auditor. In delivering Innocent III’s mandate of submission to Markward of Anweiler in 1199, his courage was rewarded when, between 1209 and 1221, as cardinal bishop of Ostia and legate a latere with plenipotential power, further legations took him to Germany, Tuscany, and Lombardy. Whilst his dealings with Otto IV proved ultimately unsuccessful, his strong defence of the faith against heresy, his pacification of the North Italian communes and his active campaigns to preach and raise troops for the Fifth Crusade all added to his reputation. In religious matters, on hearing Jacques de Vitry’s account at Perugia in 1216 of large numbers of penitential Umbrian women seeking a religious lifestyle, by 1219 Hugo had himself succeeded in gathering four convents into the Order of the Poor Ladies of the Valle Spoletana.