Fourth Council of the Lateran

Proceedings

Innocent III deliberately chose for the Fourth Council to meet in November, during which there were numerous feast days. A preliminary legal session took place on 4 November, while the opening ceremony of the council was held on St. Martin's Day and began with a private morning Mass. Afterwards, at the start of the first plenary session in the Lateran Palace, the Pope led the singing of "Veni Creator Spiritus" and preached about Jesus' words to his disciples at the Last Supper, quoting from Luke 22. In his next two sermons, one on the need to recover the Holy Land and the other on dealing with heretics, the Pope was joined on stage by Raoul of Mérencourt and Thedisius of Agde respectively.

On 14 November, there were violent scenes between the partisans of Simon de Montfort among the French bishops and those of the Count of Toulouse. Raymond VI of Toulouse, his son (afterwards Raymond VII), and Raymond-Roger of Foix attended the council to dispute the threatened confiscation of their territories; Bishop Foulques and Guy de Montfort (brother of Simon de Montfort) argued in favour of the confiscation. All of Raymond VI's lands were confiscated, save Provence, which was kept in trust to be restored to Raymond VII. Pierre-Bermond of Sauve's claim to Toulouse was rejected and Toulouse was awarded to de Montfort, while the lordship of Melgueil was separated from Toulouse and entrusted to the bishops of Maguelonne.

The next day, in a ceremony attended by many council participants, the Pope consecrated the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which had been rebuilt by Callixtus II. Four days later, the anniversary celebration at St. Peter's Basilica brought together such a large gathering that the Pope himself had trouble entering the premises.

The second plenary session was held on 20 November; the Pope was scheduled to preach about church reform, but proceedings were disrupted by bishops who opposed the designation of Frederick II as Holy Roman Emperor. The council concluded on 30 November, Saint Andrew's Day, during which the Pope preached on the Nicene Creed and concluded his remarks by raising up a relic of the True Cross. The archbishop of Mainz Siegfried II of Eppstein attempted to interrupt the speech, although he complied with the Pope's raising of his hand—a command to stay silent.

Outcomes

Lateran IV had three objectives: crusading, Church reform, and combating heresy. The seventy-one Lateran canons, which were not debated, were only formally adopted on the last day of the council; according to Anne J. Duggan, the "scholarly consensus" is that they were drafted by Innocent III himself. They cover a range of themes including Church reform and elections, taxation, matrimony, tithing, simony, and Judaism. After being recorded in the papal registers, the canons were quickly circulated in law schools. Effective application of the decrees varied according to local conditions and customs.

Joachimism

The Council condemned the teaching of the Joachimites, which was a mystical tendency of Franciscans who believed the church was entering a new "era of the Holy Spirit" where the established church would be replaced by (or process into) an egalitarian and utopian monastic rule.

As part of this, the Council stated that "between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them," which became the basis of much Catholic theology, notable of the analogia entis.

Minorities

While the precise application and levels of conformity to Lateran IV were variable, some historians claim that it created a wide range of legal measures with long term repercussions, which were used to persecute minorities and helped usher in a specifically intolerant kind of European society, or as historian R. I. Moore defines it, a "persecuting society". These measures applied with vigour first to heretics, and then increasingly to other minorities, such as Jews and lepers. In the case of Jews, antisemitism had been rising since the Crusades in different parts of Europe, and the measures of Lateran IV gave the legal means to implement active systemic persecution, such as physical separation of Jews and Christians, enforced through Jews being obliged to wear distinctive badges or clothing.

The Council mandated that Jews separate and distinguish themselves, in order to "protect" Christians from their influence.

In some provinces a difference in dress distinguishes the Jews or Saracens from the Christians, but in certain others such a confusion has grown up that they cannot be distinguished by any difference. Thus it happens at times that through error Christians have relations with the women of Jews or Saracens, and Jews and Saracens with Christian women. Therefore, that they may not, under pretext of error of this sort, excuse themselves in the future for the excesses of such prohibited intercourse, we decree that such Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress. Particularly, since it may be read in the writings of Moses [Numbers 15:37–41], that this very law has been enjoined upon them.

Records and implementation

While the proceedings were not officially recorded, unlike in previous councils, evidence of the events have been found in various manuscripts by observers of the council. The Chronica Majora by Matthew Paris contains a line drawing of one of the sessions at the council which his abbot William of St Albans had personally attended. An extensive eyewitness account by an anonymous German cleric was copied into a manuscript that was published in 1964, in commemoration of the Second Vatican Council, and is now housed at the University of Giessen.

Dissemination of the Canons themselves was often patchy and incomplete, as it relied on handwritten records kept by local bishops, while it is unclear if the Papacy ever provided official copies. Local adaptations of the Canons could reflect disagreements or differences of priorities, and the incompleteness of the transmission of the canons was recognised as a significant problem by the Papacy. Implementation of the council's reforms was included within the Canons, with instructions that local councils should be held in order to create plans for their adoption. Provinces held councils to instruct Bishops to hold local synods, however the evidence suggests that this mechanism did not result in Bishops holding meetings and organising reforms in the manner intended.

Legacy

Henry of Segusio likened the council to the "four great councils of antiquity". Lateran IV is sometimes referred to as the "Great Council of the Lateran" due to the presence of 404 or 412 bishops (including 71 cardinals and archbishops) and over 800 abbots and priors representing some eighty ecclesiastical provinces, together with 23 Latin-speaking prelates from the Eastern Orthodox Church and representatives of several monarchs, including Frederick II of Sicily, Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, John, King of England, Andrew II of Hungary, Philip II of France, and the kings of Aragon, Cyprus, and Jerusalem. This made it the largest ecumenical council between the Council of Chalcedon and the Second Vatican Council; Anne J. Duggan writes that "it was the largest, most representative, and most influential council assembled under papal leadership before the end of the fourteenth century." According to F. Donald Logan, "the Fourth Lateran Council was the most important general council of the church in the Middle Ages", whose effects "were felt for centuries."

Canons