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.