Honorius III brought the Savelli family to power rather than they him. Like the Conti and the Orsini, the Savelli were one of the new noble families of the twelfth century, but without the acquisition of the papal tiara they would probably have remained of small influence except within the city of Rome. Of Roman birth, ‘genere Romanus’, as many of the chroniclers note, Cencio Savelli is thought to have been the son of Haimericus. It has been argued that his father's name (and the use of the name Pandulf within the family) suggests a Germanic origin, but by the 1160s the family already possessed moderate-sized estates in the Campagna – in the Sabina and at Castel Gandolfo, Castel Savello (near Albano), Albano and Arricia in the Alban hills. Cencio probably spent his childhood in Rome. The year of his birth is unknown and also the name of his mother. If, however, he was about thirty when he became cardinal deacon of S. Lucia in Orthea in 1193, he was born close to 1163 at the beginning of the long pontificate of Alexander III. Many of the chroniclers describe him as of mature age (‘senior venerandus’ and ‘jam aevo grandior’) at the time of his election as pope in 1216. The date of 1163 for his birth would make him fifty-three; he could have been at least ten years older.

RELATIONS WITH THE CROWN AND REALM: THE PAPAL FIEF

Perhaps an action of the greatest diplomatic skill, perhaps a last-ditch attempt to save his Crown, King John's surrender of his kingdom to the pope in 1213 tested Innocent III's exalted claims. These claims were not confined to the spiritual dominion but extended to feudal overlordship. John's manoeuvre, moreover, tried the strength of the papacy in its new role of arbiter of European politics. Yet it was not Innocent who had to re-form the bonds of society, re-establish the peace, end the civil war and restore Angevin government in England. The task had scarcely begun when Innocent died in July 1216. Three months later, King John himself was dead, leaving an heir, a minor. The political complexion had changed considerably.

The text of King John's grant of his kingdom to the pope stated that he granted to ‘God, the apostles Peter and Paul, the Holy Roman Church our mother, and to our lord pope Innocent III and his catholic successors the kingdoms of England and Ireland, with all right and appurtenances for the omission of our sins and of all our race (genus), living and dead’. In return John received the kingdoms from God and the Roman Church tanquam feodatarius in the presence of Pandulf, papal subdeacon and familiarius, swearing faith to Innocent and his successors and to the Roman Church.

EDITORIAL TECHNIQUES

Without details of the type listed below, further progress cannot be made in elucidating the practices of the papal Chancery and of the individual scribes who composed this institution. For this reason, it is not satisfactory to reproduce the forms without the details. Nor are the previous editions, such as Rymer and Shirley, or those from cartulary or register sources, suitable for palaeographic and diplomatic study. Details, such as those of abbreviation, spelling, punctuation and form, may not always have immediate significance, but until such minutiae are provided for originals, further advances in the study of papal documents will remain limited.

None of the editions or calendars of these documents, with the exception of the Lambeth catalogue, gives the names of the scribes – a major piece of diplomatic and palaeographical evidence and one that has not been exploited. Hitherto it has been supposed that not every document was initialled or signed as early as this pontificate, but only one document has failed to reveal a siglum. Nor do any of the previous editions or calendars indicate line-breaks – information that can contribute towards the evidence necessary for building up the details of a particular hand. For example, in the case of the dating clause, the scribe was supposed to make the break, if it could not be avoided, before pontificatus, as can be seen correctly executed in the work of Iacobus and Otto (nos. 3, 4; 2, 18), so that the day and month appeared on one line.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORMS AND THE TRANSMISSION OF THE CONTENTS OF LETTERS

Letters were the vehicle of the curia's thought. They crystallized curial attitudes and aspirations and provided a bridge between general political ideas and the specific requirements of the particular institution or person. The development of forms in which the letter might be cast mirrored the growth of papal government. While parts of the letter might be very ancient in their form, others were more flexible and could be adapted or shaped to new requirements.

The method of transmitting the contents of a letter to more than one person at a time was by reading aloud. Public readings of some documents at least took place after they were acquired in order to disseminate the contents. An illumination in a Harley manuscript clearly shows Archbishop Arundel reading a sealed document, possibly a papal letter, to an assembled audience. Addresses, such as ‘To all the faithful of Christ’ and ‘To all the faithful of Christ throughout the province of Canterbury’, obviously presupposed a reading of the letter in a public place or places: how otherwise were the faithful of Christ to know of the indulgence offered? The translation of St Thomas of Canterbury from his first resting place in the crypt to the superb corona or retro-choir of his cathedral was well publicized.

THE NUMBER OF THE LETTERS

The estimated output of the papal Chancery is a topic that has received much attention. Annual averages of letters for which there is evidence before about 1130 (the accession of Innocent II), based on jaffé, do not climb beyond the thirties. With Innocent II (1130–43) the annual average rises to seventy-two, with Adrian IV (1154–9) to 130, and with Alexander III (1159–81) to 179. This pronounced curve upwards in the twelfth century appears to reflect both more active government and improved survival of the sources: the two are not unconnected. It has been argued by Alexander Murray that many of Gregory VII's communications were oral. If that be so, a hundred years later there had been a radical transformation from a society that depended on word of mouth and visible ceremony for authentication to one that favoured written testimony. Innocent III's average yearly issue, based on Potthast, amounts to 303.7 letters (total number of letters 5316 in a pontificate of 17½ years), and for Honorius III the average annual issue is 238.7 letters (total issue 2545 in a pontificate of 10⅔ years). The upward curve in the number of papal letters continues throughout the thirteenth century, being particularly noticeable under Innocent IV and Alexander IV and again under Boniface VIII.

The development of registration and the survival of a continuous series of registers from the early thirteenth century is a marked feature of contemporary Europe in which the papacy led the way.

Was Honorius III a continuator or an innovator? The evidence suggests little certain innovation during this pontificate but more a logical, practical and sensible continuation of trends. The end of the old-style chancellorship, the development of the audientia litter arum contradictarum in the Chancery, the compilation of an official law collection for the reign, and an application of Innocent III's political programme, in the case of England, and his Church programme, as defined by the Fourth Lateran Council, all illustrate this. Honorius was a capable administrator, able, as perhaps Innocent III might not have been, to implement many of these ideas and intentions. Parallels can be provided in a modern context, in Lyndon B. Johnson's administration following the dynamic and reforming presidency of John F. Kennedy and, indeed, in Paul VI's papacy, coming after and effecting the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and its instigator, John XXIII.

We cannot know Honorius's thought processes and it is impossible to determine what were his personal pronouncements and views, but we do know that he had been steeped in papal administration from his earliest years in Chamber and in Chancery and that he made the administration work. If he was thought to be softer and more accommodating than his predecessor, ‘amletico’, perhaps, he appears to have preferred compromise to confrontation and the implementation of ideas to theorizing.

THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS

The making and compiling of decretal law under Honorius III has not been investigated fully. Yet how the law was made and collected – and by whom – and how compilation of a decretal collection related to the letters written during the pontificate are essential questions to consider. Of the pope's total correspondence, only a small proportion was selected for preservation for legal purposes. The pope might make many juridical points by letter but only those utterances which were known to and chosen by the canonist collectors had any chance of survival for legal and judicial use. Until the first decade of the thirteenth century collections of decretals were made by canonists for their own private purposes – for teaching and for judicial precedent. There was no notion until 1209–10 of an official collection of the decretals of a particular pontiff. For Honorius no private collections of decretals are known, as they are for his predecessor, Innocent III. The one official law collection, the Compilatio Quinta, came towards the end of the pontificate. The compiler, the canonist Tancred, took his texts exclusively from the papal registers of Honorius, as has been demonstrated convincingly. Reliance on this sole source suggests that no previous collections of Honorius's pronouncements were at hand or were known to him, and his method of operation lends further weight to this suggestion.

THE CHANCERY IN THE LATE TWELFTH AND EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

On his accession to the papacy in July 1216 Honorius inherited an administrative machine which in the previous quarter century had undergone an unparalleled expansion and a radical reformation and rationalization. In this development he had played a personal rôle as papal chamberlain from 1188 to 1198, concerned with the collection of rents, tributes and taxes. The organization of the Chamber is not of direct concern here, but Honorius's Liber Censuum exhibits an author who was deeply versed in the administration of the papal curia and one whose administrative efficiency was to influence his activities as pope. Furthermore from 1194, as cardinal deacon of S. Lucia in Orthea, he combined the office of papal chamberlain with that of acting chancellor, in succession to Egidio cardinal deacon of S. Niccolò in Carcere, dating papal letters between 6 November 1194 and 10 September 1197. He controlled both Chancery and Chamber until 1198. The close connection between the two offices is witnessed by the scribe of the Liber Censuum, Willelmus Rofio of Saint-Jean-d'Angély in Saintonge, who was described by Cencio as ‘clericus camere et cancellarie domini pape scriptor’. When the young Cardinal Lothario dei Conti, consecrated Pope Innocent III, came into power, the cardinal deacon Cencio was not retained under the new régime in either the office of chamberlain or that of chancellor.