Page 155

Ch. V THE FOURTH CRUSADE 155 
went to Venice to enlist the support of the Venetians, and cardinal Peter
Capuano<4> went to France to promulgate the crusade there. Two cardinals
were also sent to persuade the Pisans and Genoese to make peace and prepare
to take part in the crusade. The pope wrote to the Byzantine emperor, Alexius
III Angelus, reproving him for not having long since come to the aid of the
Holy Land, and admonishing him as well to acknowledge the primacy of the
papacy. Alexius replied in February 1199 with recriminations of his own.
<5> Arriving in France late in 1198, Peter Capuano called an assembly
of the French clergy at Dijon, where he promulgated the papal bull. He found
Philip Augustus, by Christmas 1198, faced with a coalition of French lords
whom Richard had won over to his side - including count Baldwin of Flanders
and Hainault, count Louis of Blois, and the counts of Boulogne and Toulouse
- and therefore eager to listen to Peter's proposals for a truce. <6>
Two or three weeks later Peter met with Richard in Normandy. Though Richard
maintained that he was only fighting to recover the lands which Philip had
perfidiously seized in his absence on the Third Crusade, and accused Philip
of responsibility for his captivity in Germany, complaining also that the
pope had not given him the protection due him as a returning crusader, he
finally yielded to Peter's plea that the war was hindering the recovery of
Jerusalem. Late in January 1199 Richard and Philip met and made a truce for
five years. <7> But before the end of March Richard was dead, and Philip
Augustus soon renewed against John his efforts to seize the Angevin lands
on the continent. 
 The date, March 1199, originally set by the pope for the departure of the
armies, passed - as did most of the rest of the year - without even the formation
of an expeditionary force. 
 4 Sometimes erroneously referred to as Peter of Capua, he came not from
Capua but from Amalfi, and belonged to a noble family of that city; see especially
M. Camera, Memorie storico-diplomatiche dell' antica citta e ducato di Amalfi,
I (Salerno, 1876), 90, note I; 383 ff., 665. He was to be Innocent's chief
agent in the promotion of the crusade in the west until the spring of 1203,
when he was sent on a special mission to the east. At the time of his French
mission he held the titular office of cardinal-deacon of St. Mary in Via
Lata, and was later advanced by Innocent to the title of cardinal-priest
of St. Marcellus. Soffredo was cardinalpriest of St. Praxed. 
 5 Innocent III, Epp., an. I, no. 353 (PL, CCXIV, cols, 325 ff.); an. II,
no. 210 (ibid., cols. 765 ff.). 
 6 Both Roger of Wendover, Flares historiarum, ad ann. 1198 (ed. H. G. Hewlett,
Rolls Series, LXXXIV), I, 280 ff., and the verse biography of William Marshal,
L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal (ed. P. Meyer, Paris, 1891-1901),
lines 11355-11372, ascribe the entire mission of Peter Capuano to a ruse
of Philip, who had allegedly begged the pope for a legate to make peace between
himself and Richard, and who had paid so well for the favor that Innocent
had complied. The verse reflects the English point of view. 
 7 Innocent III, Epp., an. II, nos. 23-25 (PL, CCXIV, cols. 552 ff.). Innocent's
letters of congratulation to Peter, confirming the truce.