Editing Fourth Council of the Lateran (section)

===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>}}