Editing Fourth Council of the Lateran (section)

==Outcomes==
Lateran IV had three objectives: [[Crusading movement|crusading]], Church reform, and combating heresy.{{Sfn|Helmrath|2015|p=19}} The seventy-one Lateran canons, which were not debated, were only formally adopted on the last day of the council;{{Sfn|Helmrath|2015|pp=35–36}} according to Anne J. Duggan, the "scholarly consensus" is that they were drafted by Innocent III himself.{{Sfn|Duggan|2008|p=343}} They cover a range of themes including Church reform and elections, taxation, matrimony, tithing, [[simony]], and [[Judaism]].{{Sfn|Tanner|2016|p=228}} After being recorded in the papal registers, the canons were quickly circulated in law schools.{{Sfn|Pennington|2015|p=43}} Effective application of the decrees varied according to local conditions and customs.{{Sfn|Duggan|2008|p=366}}

===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)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gould |first1=Warwick |last2=Reeves |first2=Marjorie |title=Joachim of Fiore |date=13 December 2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-924230-6 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199242306.001.0001 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|8}} an egalitarian and utopian monastic rule.<ref name="Whalen">{{Cite book|last=Whalen|first=Brett Edward|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=POw3H2C9Ak0C&q=Joachim|title=Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages|date=October 2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-03629-1|language=en}}</ref>  

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 {{lang|la|[[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 [[Leprosy|lepers]].{{sfn|Moore|2007|pp=10-11}} 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.{{sfn|Moore|2007|p=42}}

The Council mandated that Jews separate and distinguish themselves, in order to "protect" Christians from their influence.
{{blockquote|In some provinces a difference in dress distinguishes the Jews or [[Saracen]]s 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 [{{bibleverse||Numbers|15:37–41|NIV}}], that this very law has been enjoined upon them.<ref name="Halsall_1996">{{cite book|editor-last=Halsall|editor-first=Paul|date=March 1996|chapter=Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran IV 1215|chapter-url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp|title=Internet Medieval Sourcebook|via=[[Internet History Sourcebooks Project]]|access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref>}}

===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.{{Sfn|Bolton|1995|p=59}} 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.{{Sfn|Bolton|1995|p=60}} 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]].{{Sfn|Bolton|1995|p=53}}

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.{{sfn|Wayno|2018|pp=615-6}} 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.{{sfn|Wayno|2018|p=616}} 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.{{sfn|Wayno|2018|p=619}} 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.{{sfn|Wayno|2018|pp=621-2}}