A great many bishops have the opportunity…

November 1215 CE

A great many bishops have the opportunity to attend the Fourth Lateran Council due to the great length of time between its convocation and meeting.

The twelfth ecumenical council, it is sometimes called "the General Council of Lateran" due to the presence of seventy-one patriarchs and metropolitan bishops, four hundred and twelve bishops, and nine hundred abbots and priors together with representatives of several monarchs.

The Council confirms the elevation of Frederick II as Holy Roman Emperor.

Despite the unmitigated disaster of the Fourth Crusade, something of the original crusading fervor still obtains in certain areas of society, but there is considerable disillusionment among the nobility, especially when the same religious indulgence has been promised in the “Crusade” against heretics in southern France, as it will be later against secular opponents of the popes.

Innocent, despite his preoccupation with the kings of England and France, a civil war in Germany, heresy, the advance of Islam in Spain, and his strenuous efforts to promote widespread ecclesiastical reform, renews his efforts to organize another expedition to the Holy land.

With the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Raoul of Merencourt, he discusses the recovery of the Holy Land, among other church business.

Pope Innocent wants it to be led by the papacy, as the First Crusade should have been, in order to avoid the mistakes of the Fourth Crusade, which had been essentially hijacked by the Venetians.

Preachers are designated; even troubadours contribute to the propaganda.

The final canon promulgated by the Fourth Lateran Council is an elaborate Crusade plan repeating earlier prohibitions on the transport of military supplies to Muslims.

Levies on clerical incomes are again authorized.

This council—which, like the less important Second and Third Lateran Councils, mandates imprisonment and confiscation of property as punishment for heresy and threatens to excommunicate princes who fail to punish heretics—proscribes the works of Aristotle.

The council also provides additional legal basis for Christian rejection of Jews, ordering Jews and Saracens to wear distinctive dress and requiring Jews in Christian lands to wear a skullcap as a distinguishing mark.

Jews must live in segregated quarters.

Jews may not exact interest on loans to Christians, and Christians may not do business with Jews who do not obey Church rules.

Moreover, Jews may not hold public office; converts to Christianity must stop Jewish observances, and Jews are prohibited from hiring as servants Christian women of childbearing age.

The council sanctions a definition of the Eucharist in which the word transubstantiation is used officially for the first time, and adopts several precepts binding on Roman Catholics, including the Easter duty, or obligation, of annual confession of serious sin followed by Holy Communion.