# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Lateran Councils

From volume 9 of the work.
Lateran Councils, a series of five important councils held at Rome from the twelfth to the sixteen century. From the reign of Constantine the Great until the removal of the papal Court to Avignon, the Lateran palace and basilica served the bishops of Rome as residence and cathedral. During this long period the popes had occasion to convoke a number of general councils, and for this purpose they made choice of cities so situated as to reduce as much as possible the inconveniences which the bishops called to such assemblies must necessarily experience by reason of long and costly absence from their sees. Five of these councils were held in the Lateran palace, and are known as the First (1123), Second (1139), Third (1179), Fourth (1215), and Fifth Lateran Councils.
Other, non-ecumenical councils were held at the Lateran, among the best known being those in 649 against the Monothelite heresy, in 823, 864, 900, 1102, 1105, 1110, 1111, 1112, and 1116. In 1725, Benedict XIII called to the Lateran the bishops directly dependent on Rome as their metropolitan see, i.e. archbishops without suffragans, bishops immediately subject to the Holy See, and abbots exercising quasi-episcopal jurisdiction. Seven sessions were held between 15 April and 29 May, and various regulations were promulgated concerning the duties of bishops and other pastors, concerning residence, ordinations, and the periods for the holding of synods. The chief objects were the suppression of Jansenism and the solemn confirmation of the Bull "Unigenitus," which was declared a rule of faith demanding the fullest obedience.
First Lateran Council (1123).—The Council of 1123 is reckoned in the series of ecumenical councils. It had been convoked in December, 1122, immediately after the Concordat of Worms, which agreement between pope and emperor had caused general satisfaction in the Church. It put a stop to the arbitrary conferring of ecclesiastical benefices by laymen, reestablished freedom of episcopal and abbatial elections, separated spiritual from temporal affairs, and ratified the principle that spiritual authority can emanate only from the Church; lastly it tacitly abolished the exorbitant claim of the emperors to interfere in papal elections. So deep was the emotion caused by this concordat, the first ever signed, that in many documents of the time, the year 1122 is mentioned as the beginning of a new era. For its more solemn confirmation and in conformity with the earnest desire of the Archbishop of Mainz, Callistus II convoked a council to which all the archbishops and bishops of the West were invited. Three hundred bishops and more than six hundred abbots assembled at Rome in March, 1123; Callistus II presided in person. Both originals (instrumenta) of the Concordat of Worms were read and ratified, and twenty-two disciplinary canons were promulgated, most of them reinforcements of previous conciliary decrees.
Second Lateran Council (1139).— The death of Pope Honorius II (February, 1130) was followed by a schism. Petrus Leonis (Pierleoni), under the name of Anacletus II, for a long time held in check the legitimate pope, Innocent II, who was supported by St. Bernard and St. Norbert. In 1135 Innocent II celebrated a Council at Pisa, and his cause gained steadily until, in January, 1138, the death of Anacletus helped largely to solve the difficulty. Nevertheless, to efface the last vestiges of the schism, to condemn various errors and reform abuses among clergy and people Innocent, in the month of April, 1139, convoked, at the Lateran, the tenth ecumenical council. Nearly a thousand prelates, from most of the Christian nations, assisted. The pope opened the council with a discourse, and deposed from their offices those who had been ordained and instituted by the antipope and by his chief partisans, Ægidius of Tusculum and Gerard of Angouleme. As Roger, King of Sicily, a partisan of Anacletus who had been reconciled with Innocent, persisted in maintaining in Southern Italy his schismatical attitude, he was excommunicated. The council likewise condemned the errors of the Petrobrusians and the Henricians, the followers of two active and dangerous heretics, Peter of Bruys and Arnold of Brescia. The council promulgated against these heretics its twenty-third canon, a repetition of the third canon of the Council of Toulouse (1119) against the Manichaeans. Finally, the council drew up measures for the amendment of ecclesiastical morals and discipline that had grown lax during the schism. Twenty-eight canons pertinent to these matters reproduced in great part the decrees of the Council of Reims, in 1131, and the Council of Clermont, in 1130, whose enactments, frequently cited since then under the name of the Lateran Council, acquired thereby increase of authority.
Third Lateran Council (1179).—The reign of Alexander III was one of the most laborious pontificates of the Middle Ages. Then, as in 1139, the object was to repair the evils caused by the schism of an antipope. Shortly after returning to Rome (12 March, 1178) and receiving from its inhabitants their oath of fidelity and certain indispensable guarantees, Alexander had the satisfaction of receiving the submission of the antipope Callistus III (John de Struma). The latter, besieged at Viterbo by Christian of Mainz, eventually yielded and, at Tusculum, made his submission to Pope Alexander (29 August, 1178), who received him with kindness and appointed him Governor of Beneventum. Some of his obstinate partisans sought to substitute a new antipope, and chose one Lando Sitino, under the name of Innocent III. For lack of support he soon gave up the struggle and was relegated to the monastery of La Cava. In September, 1178, the pope in agreement with an article of the Peace of Venice, convoked an ecumenical council at the Lateran for Lent of the following year and, with that object, sent legates to different countries. This was the eleventh of the ecumenical councils. It met in March, 1179. The pope presided, seated upon an elevated throne, surrounded by the cardinals, and by the prefects, senators, and consuls of Rome. The gathering numbered three hundred and two bishops, among them several Latin prelates of Eastern sees. There were in all nearly one thousand members. Nectarius, abbot of the Cabules, represented the Greeks. The East was represented by Archbishops William of Tyre and Heraclius of Caesarea, Prior Peter of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Bishop of Bethlehem. Spain sent nineteen bishops; Ireland, six; Scotland, only one- England, seven; France, fifty nine; Germany, seventeen- Denmark and Hungary, one each. The bishops of Ireland had at their head St. Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin. The pope consecrated, in the presence of the council, two English bishops, and two Scottish, one of whom had come to Rome with only one horse the other on foot. There was also present an Icelandic bishop who had no other revenue than the milk of three cows, and when one of these went dry his diocese furnished him with another.
Besides exterminating the remains of the schism the council undertook the condemnation of the Waldensian heresy and the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline, which had been much relaxed. Three sessions were held, on 5, 14, and 19 March, in which twenty-seven canons were promulgated, the most important of which may be summarized as follows:
Fourth Lateran Council (1215).—From the commencement of his reign Innocent III had purposed to assemble an ecumenical council, but only towards the end of his pontificate could he realize this project, by the Bull of 19 April, 1213. The assembly was to take place in November, 1215. The council did in fact meet on 11 November, and its sessions were prolonged until the end of the month. The long interval between the convocation and the opening of the council as well as the prestige of the reigning pontiff, were responsible for the very large number of bishops who attended it, it is commonly cited in canon law as "the General Council of Lateran", without further qualification, or again, as "the Great Council". Innocent III found himself on this occasion surrounded by seventy-one patriarchs and metropolitans, including the Patriarchs of Constantinople and of Jerusalem, four hundred and twelve bishops, and nine hundred abbots and priors. The Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were represented by delegates. Envoys appeared from Emperor Frederick II, from Henry Latin Emperor of Constantinople, from the Kings of France, England, Aragon, Hungary, Cyprus, and Jerusalem, and from other princes. The pope himself opened the council with an allocution the lofty views of which surpassed the orator's power of expression. He had desired, said the pope, to celebrate this Pasch before he died. He declared himself ready to drink the chalice of the Passion for the defence of the Catholic Faith, for the succour of the Holy Land, and to establish the liberty of the Church. After this discourse, followed by moral exhortation, the pope presented to the council seventy decrees or canons, already formulated, on the most important points of dogmatic and moral theology. Dogmas were defined points of discipline were decided, measures were drawn up against heretics, and, finally, the conditions of the next crusade were regulated.
The fathers of the council did little more than approve the seventy decrees presented to them; this approbation, nevertheless, sufficed to impart to the acts thus formulated and promulgated the value of ecumenical decrees. Most of them are somewhat lengthy and are divided into chapters. The following are the most important:
The council, moreover, made rules for the projected crusade, imposed a four years' peace on all Christian peoples and princes published indulgences, and enjoined the bishops to reconcile all enemies, The council confirmed the elevation of Frederick II to the German throne and took other important measures. Its decrees were widely published in many provincial councils.
Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17).—When elected pope, Julius II promised under oath that he would soon convoke a general council. Time passed, however, and this promise was not fulfilled. Consequently, certain dissatisfied cardinals, urged, also, by Emperor Maximilian and Louis XII, convoked a council at Pisa and fixed 1 September, 1511, for its opening This event was delayed until 1 October. Four cardinals then met at Pisa provided with proxies from three absent cardinals. Several bishops and abbots were also there, as well as ambassadors from the King of France. Seven or eight sessions were held, in the last of which Pope Julius II was suspended, whereupon the prelates withdrew to Lyons. The pope hastened to oppose to this conciliabulum a more numerously attended council, which he convoked, by the Bull of 18 July, 1511, to assemble 19 April, 1512, in the church of St. John Lateran. The Bull was at once a canonical and a polemical document. In it the pope refuted in detail the reasons alleged by the cardinals for their Pisa conciliabulum. He declared that his conduct before his elevation to the pontificate was a pledge of his sincere desire for the celebration of the council; that since his elevation he had always sought opportunities for assembling it; that for this reason he had sought to reestablish peace among Christian princes; that the wars which had arisen against his will had no other object than the reestablishment of pontifical authority in the States of the Church. He then reproached the rebel cardinals with the irregularity of their onduct and the unseemliness of convoking the Universal Church independently of its head. He pointed out to them that the three months accorded by them for the assembly of all bishops at Pisa was too short, and that said city presented none of the advantages requisite for an assembly of such importance. Finally, he declared that no one should attach any significance to the act of the cardinals. The Bull was signed by twenty-one cardinals. The French victory of Ravenna (11 April, 1512) hindered the opening of the council before 3 May, on which day the fathers met in the Lateran Basilica. There were present fifteen cardinals, the Latin Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, ten archbishops, fifty-six bishops, some abbots and gererals of religious orders, the ambassadors of Kings Ferdinand, and those of Venice and of Florence. Convoked by Julius II, the assembly survived him, was continued by Leo X, and held its twelfth, and last, session on 16 March, 1417. In the third session Matthew Lang, who had represented Maximilian at the Council of Tours, read an act by which that emperor repudiated all that had been done at Tours and at Pisa. In the fourth session the advocate of the council demanded the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. In the eighth (17 December, 1513), an act of King Louis XII was read, disavowing the Council of Pisa and adhering to the Lateran Council. In the next session (5 March, 1514) the pope published four decrees:
Other Lateran Councils.—Other councils were held at the Lateran, among the best known being those in 649 against the Monothelite heresy, in 823, 864, 900 1102 1105, 1110 1111, 1112, and 1116. In 1725, Benedict XIII called to the Lateran the bishops directly dependent on Rome as their metropolitan see, i.e. archbishops without suffragans, bishops immediately subject to the Holy See, and abbots exercising quasi-episcopal jurisdiction. Seven sessions were held between April 15 and May 29, and divers regulations were promulgated concerning the duties of bishops and other pastors, concerning residence, ordinations, and the periods for the holding of synods. The chief objects were the suppression of Jansenism and the solemn confirmation of the Bull “Unigenitus“, which was declared a rule of faith demanding the fullest obedience.
Coll. Regia Conciliorum, XXVII, col. 32, 120, 434; Marca, Concordantia sacerdotii et imperii, II, (Paris, 1663), 363, 436; Mansi, Conc. ampliss. collectio, XXI, col. 277, 523; XXII, col. 34, 210; Alexander, Hist. eccles., (Venice 1778), 299-302; 347-58; Lessius, Discussio decreti magni concilii Lateranensis (Mainz, 1613); Widdringtonus, Discussio discussionis decreti Lateranenis, (London, 1618); Walch and Buddée, Commentatio historico-theologica de conciliis Lateranensibus rei Christianæ noxiis (Jena, 1724); Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, V (Freiburg im Br., 1886), 378, 438, 710, 872; Rivington, The Primitive Church and the See of Peter (London, 1894); Pastor, History of the Popes, tr. Antrobus, V (London, 1902) passim.
H. Leclercq