page_title: First Council of the Lateran
section_title: Results of the Council
hierarchical_section_title: First Council of the Lateran / Results of the Council
caption_attribution_description: Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire in "Schatzkammer" Vienna
context_page_description: The First Council of the Lateran was the 9th ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church. It was convoked by Pope Callixtus II in December 1122, immediately after the Concordat of Worms. The council sought to: bring an end to the practice of the conferring of ecclesiastical benefices by people who were laymen; free the election of bishops and abbots from secular influence; clarify the separation of spiritual and temporal affairs; re-establish the principle that spiritual authority resides solely in the Church; abolish the claim of the emperors to influence papal elections.
  The council convoked by Callixtus II was significant in size: three hundred bishops and more than six hundred abbots assembled at Rome in March, 1123; Callixtus II presided in person. During the Council the decisions of the Concordat of Worms were read and ratified. Various other decisions were promulgated.
context_section_description: Lateran I was the first of four Lateran Councils between the years 1123–1215. The first  was not very original in its concept, nor one called to meet a pressing theological question. For the most part, Pope Callixtus II summoned the council to ratify the various meetings and concords which had been occurring in and around Rome for several years. The most pressing issue was that of the Investiture Controversy which had consumed nearly a century of contention and open warfare. At the heart of the question was the ancient right of the Holy Roman Emperor to name the pope as well as bishops and priests. These would be invested with some secular symbol such as a sword or scepter and the spiritual authority represented by a ring, miter and crosier.  To an illiterate population, it appeared the bishop or abbot was now the king’s inferior and owed his position to the king.  This issue came to the fore in the first part of the eleventh century when Rome and the pope sought autonomy from the Holy Roman Emperor. It had been a central issue in the reign of Pope Gregory VII and his battles with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. The issue was never settled. Years of teaching by Roman trained priests and bishops in Germany had led to an educated generation which rejected the idea of divine right of kings. 
   
  The Third Lateran Council and the Fourth Lateran Council are generally considered to be of much greater significance than Lateran I.  However, Lateran I marked the first time a general and large Council had been held in the West.  All previous Councils had been in the East and dominated by  Greek theologians and philosophers.
  In the struggle between Stephen of England and Matilda, the daughter of Henry I of England, the  English Church slipped away from the close control the Normans had exercised.  Stephen was forced to make many concessions to the Church to gain some element of political control.  Historians have largely considered his rule to be a disaster, calling it The Anarchy.
  Because of political necessity, the Holy Roman Emperors were restrained from directly naming bishops in the kingdom. In practicality, the process continued to a certain extent. The issue of separation of church and state was simply recast in a different direction. Of all the Gregorian Reforms which were embodied by Lateran I, celibacy of the clergy was the most successful. Simony was curtailed. As time progressed, secular interference into the politics of the Church was seen to continue, albeit in different ways from that of the Investiture Controversy.
  It has been argued by some historians that the Concordat of Worms and its reiteration by Lateran I were little more than face saving measures by the Church. Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor continued to name bishops within his kingdom. His control over the papacy was definitely abated. At the time, the Concordat of Worms was proclaimed as a great victory for Henry V inside the Holy Roman Empire.  It did serve to constrain much of the most recent warfare in and outside the empire. In the end, Henry V died the monarch of a much diminished kingdom.
caption: Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor died leaving his kingdom in a much weakened condition.
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