Innocent III elected pope

January 8, 1198

Lothar of Segni, thirty-seven years old and one of the youngest cardinals, was elected pope the day his predecessor died. He would prove the most activist pope of the Middle Ages: launching the Fourth Crusade, the Albigensian Crusade, and approving the Franciscans and Dominicans. His eighteen-year pontificate would represent the high-water mark of medieval papal authority over the secular rulers of Christendom.