Second Council of the Lateran

Ecumenical council
council_name=Second Council of the Lateran
council_date=1139
accepted_by=Roman Catholicism
previous=First Council of the Lateran
next=Third Council of the Lateran
convoked_by=Pope Innocent II
presided_by=Pope Innocent II
attendance=1000
topics=schism of Antipope Anacletus II
documents=thirty canons, mostly repeating those of the First Lateran Council, clerical marriage declared invalid, clerical dress regulated, attacks on clerics punished by excommunicationThe Second Lateran, and tenth ecumenical council was held by Pope Innocent II in April 1139, and was attended by close to a thousand clerics. Its immediate task was to neutralize the after-effects of the schism, which had only been terminated in the previous year by the death of Antipope Anacletus II (d. January 25 1138). All consecrations received at his hands were declared invalid, his adherents were deposed, and King Roger II of Sicily was excommunicated. In all thirty canons were issued, mostly repeating those of the First Lateran Council. The main effects of the council was that clerical marriage was declared invalid, clerical dress was regulated, attacks on clerics punished by excommunication, and Peter of Bruys and Arnold of Brescia were condemned.

Tenth ecumenical council

The death of Pope Honorius II in February 1130 was followed by a schism. Petrus Leonis, under the name of Anacletus II, for a long time held in check the legitimate pope, Innocent II. In 1135, Innocent II celebrated a Council at Pisa, and his cause gained steadily until, in January 1138, the death of Anacletus helped largely to solve the difficulty. Nevertheless, to condemn various errors and reform abuses among clergy and people, Innocent, in the month of April 1139, convoked the tenth ecumenical council.CathEncy|wstitle=Second Lateran Council (1139)]

Held at the Lateran Palace, nearly a thousand prelates assisted. The pope opened the council with a discourse, and deposed from their offices those who had been ordained and instituted by the antipope and by his chief partisans, Ægidius of Tusculum and Gerard of Angouleme. As Roger II of Sicily, a partisan of Anacletus who had been reconciled with Innocent, persisted in maintaining in Southern Italy his schismatical attitude, he was excommunicated. The council likewise condemned the errors of the Petrobrusians and the Henricians, the followers of Peter of Bruys and Arnold of Brescia. The council promulgated against these two groups its twenty-third canon, a repetition of the third canon of the Council of Toulouse (1119) against the Manichaeans. Finally, the council drew up measures for the amendment of ecclesiastical morals and discipline that had grown lax during the schism. Twenty-eight canons pertinent to these matters reproduced in great part the decrees of the Council of Reims, in 1131, and the Council of Clermont, in 1130, whose enactments, frequently cited since then under the name of the Lateran Council, acquired thereby increase of authority.

Important canons

The most important results of the council included:
* Canon 4: Injunction to bishops and ecclesiastics not to scandalize anyone by the colours, the shape, or extravagance of their garments, but to clothe themselves in a modest and well-regulated manner.

* Canons 6, 7, 11: Condemnation and repression of marriage and concubinage among priests, deacons, subdeacons, monks, and nuns.

* Canon 10: Excommunication of laymen who fail to pay the tithes due the bishops, or who do not surrender to the latter the churches of which they retain possession, whether received from bishops, or obtained from princes or other persons.

* Canon 12 Fixes the periods and the duration of the Truce of God.

* Canon 14: Prohibition, under pain of deprivation of Christian burial, of jousts and tournaments which jeopardize life.

* Canon 20: Kings and princes are to dispense justice in consultation with the bishops.

* Canon 25: No one must accept a benefice at the hands of a layman.

* Canon 27: Nuns are prohibited from singing the Divine Office in the same choir with monks or canons.

* Canon 28: No church must be left vacant more than three years from the death of the bishop; anathema is pronounced against those (secular) canons who exclude from episcopal election "persons of piety" -- i. e. regular canons or monks.

The council also may have banned the use of crossbows against Christians. [The sources are collected in Hefele, Histoire des conciles d'apres les documents originaux, trans. and continued by H. Leclerq 1907-52., 5/1, 721-722; but see also, Bernhardi Jahrbuecher der deutschen Geschichte, I Leipzig 1883, 154-160.] [cite web |url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran2.html |title=Tenth Ecumenical Council: Lateran II 1139 |accessdate=2007-05-05 |date=1996-11-01 |publisher=Internet Medieval Source Book] The authenticity, interpretation and translation of this source is contested. [cite book | last = Turner | first = Monte | authorlink = | coauthors =
year = 2004 | title = The Not So Diabolical Crossbow: A Re-Examination of Innocent II’s Supposed Ban Of The Crossbow at the Second Lateran Council
publisher = Self-published thesis | id = ]

Another decision confirmed the right of religious houses of a diocese to participate in the election of the diocese's bishop.cite book |title= Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain: 1000-1300|last=Burton |first=Janet |year= 1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|series=Cambridge Medieval Textbooks |location=Cambridge UK |isbn=0-521-37797-8|pages=77]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.legionofmarytidewater.com/faith/ECUM10.HTM Second Lateran Council]