Innocent IV flees to Lyon to escape Frederick II

1243

Disguised and riding through the night, the pope escaped from Italy across the Alps to the protection of the French king at Lyon. From exile he organized resistance against the emperor, excommunicated him twice more, and attempted to depose him. The papal-imperial showdown had become a war of survival, and the spectacle of a fugitive pope directing Christendom from exile demonstrated the papacy's remarkable institutional resilience.