Fourth Lateran Council and plan for the Fifth Crusade

Background

After the Fourth Crusade's diversion to Constantinople, Innocent began planning a new Jerusalem expedition under papal direction. With the bull Quia maior in 1213 he launched the crusade's preaching and in the same year announced an ecumenical council. Hundreds of bishops, abbots and representatives of rulers from East and West attended.

The council and its decrees

In seventy-one canons the council regulated matters such as church discipline, the obligation of confession, distinctive dress for Jews and Muslims, and the struggle against heresy.

The final decree, Ad liberandam, provided for a new expedition to free Jerusalem to set out from Brindisi and Messina on 1 June 1217. All clergy were to give a twentieth of their revenues for three years to the crusade, and the pope and cardinals a tenth. A general peace of four years among Christians was proclaimed, and the sale of arms, iron and ship timber to Muslims was banned again.

Outcome and significance

Ad liberandam set out the most detailed administrative and financial programme in the organisation of the crusades and formed the legal basis of the Fifth Crusade. Innocent died in July 1216 before the crusade began; his successor Honorius III continued the programme.

The council's decrees became a model for the organisation of crusade taxes and preaching in later centuries.

Sources and debates

The council's canons and the text of Ad liberandam are published in Tanner's collection. An anonymous account left by a German cleric who attended sheds light on the course of the meeting. How far the taxes were collected and reached the crusade is debated.