LATERAN COUNCILS, five ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic Church, held in the church of Saint John Lateran, Rome, under the presidency of the Pope. The first Lateran Council, attended by 300 bishops, took place in 1123, under Calixtus II. The Con cordat of Worms (the agreement between the emperor and the Pope) was confirmed; the indulgences granted to the Crusaders by Urban II were renewed; the consecrations performed by Burdin, the anti-pope, were annulled; the decrees against simony, marriage of the clergy, etc., were repeated. The second (1139), under Innocent II, attended by 1.000 bishops, laid the interdict upon King Roger of Sicily, ex communicated the Petrobrusians, and ordered Arnold of Brescia to keep silent. The third (1179), under Alexander III, decreed that a vote of two-thirds of the total conclave should be required legitimately to elect a pope. The fourth, convened by Innocent III in 1215, is the most important of all the Lateran Councils. Besides representatives of many princes, two Oriental patriarchs were present, 412 bishops and 800 abbots and priors. Seventy decrees
were issued. The first, directed against the Cathari and Waldensians, contains a confession of faith, in which the terns transubstantiation occurs for the first time. The second decides the Trinitarian controversy between Petrus Lombardus and Joachim of Floris (in favor of the former). The 13th forbids the foundation of new monastical orders. The 21st decrees that all the faithful shall confess at least once a year to his sacerdos proprius (Mansi xxii 953-1086). The fifth (1512-17), which was convened by Julius II and continued in 1517 under Leo X, and was not recognized by the Gallivan Church, abrogated, on the command of Julius II, the Pragmatic Sanction issued by the Council of Pisa, and approved the con cordat between Francis I of France and the Pope by which the 'liberties' of the Gallivan Church were abrogated. Consult Valentini, (Basilica Lateranense descritta ed illustrata) (1839); Buddeus, Conciliis Lateranensi bus,) Jena (1725) ; von Kefele, geschiclite) (9 vols., Freiburg 1855-90).