The Fourth Lateran Council
Pope Innocent III at the height of papal power
Innocent III is the most powerful pope in the history of the medieval church. He has deposed kings, launched crusades, presided over the suppression of the Cathars, and claimed for the papacy a universal authority over temporal rulers that no pope before him has asserted with such consistency.
In 1215 he summons the Fourth Lateran Council — the largest and most important council of the medieval church, attended by over 400 bishops and 800 abbots from across the Christian world.
The council's decrees shape medieval Christianity for centuries. It requires annual confession and communion for all Christians. It defines the doctrine of transubstantiation — that the bread and wine of the Eucharist become the body and blood of Christ in substance, though the accidents of bread and wine remain. It mandates that Jews and Muslims wear distinctive clothing to identify them from Christians. It approves the new mendicant orders — the Franciscans and Dominicans are confirmed here.
Innocent also uses the council to launch the Fifth Crusade, which departs after his death and ends in failure.
The Fourth Lateran Council is the high-water mark of medieval papal power — the moment at which the papacy's claim to universal authority over the Christian world is most fully realized in institutional form.
It is also, from this height, that the long medieval descent of the papacy's credibility begins.
“Just as the moon derives its light from the sun and is indeed lower than the sun in quantity and quality, in position and in power, so too the royal power derives the splendor of its dignity from the pontifical authority.”
— Innocent III, Sicut universitatis conditor, 1198 AD
“I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you will bind on earth will be bound in heaven; and whatever you will loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Innocent III's claim — that the papacy stands to earthly kings as the sun stands to the moon — is the most expansive assertion of clerical authority in Western history.
It is also the moment most visibly prone to the corruption that absolute power invites. The Fourth Lateran Council that decreed annual confession and transubstantiation also mandated that Jews wear identifying badges — a decree that will echo in the worst chapters of European history.
Power at its height is power most at risk. The institution that claims the most authority is the institution most in need of accountability, most susceptible to the self-deception that accompanies the conviction that one speaks for God.
What institutions do you trust most? And what accountability do they have that prevents the corruption that absolute trust invites?