174 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
after suffering the loss of his goods in crossing the Wash. He was thrown into a fever, but the probable cause of his death was excess in eating and drinking.1 He was buried at his own request in Worcester cathedral. In his last moments he received the sacrament and commended his children to the protection of the pope, who had stood by him in his last conflict.
§ 41. The Fourth Later an Council, 1215.
LITERATURE. — Works of Innocent, Migne, 217. — MANSI, xxii. — LABBJEUS, xi. — POTTHAST, Rpgesta, I. 437 sqq., gives a summary of the canons of the council. — HEFELE-KNOPFLER, V. 872 sqq. — HURTER, II. 538 sqq. — LEA : Hist, of the Inquisition, passim.
The Fourth Lateran,. otherwise known as the Twelfth (Ecumenical Council, was the closing act of Innocent's pon tificate, and marks the zenith of the papal theocracy. In his letter of convocation,2 the pope announced its object to be the reconquest of Palestine and the betterment of the Church. The council was held in the Lateran and had three sittings, Nov. 11, 20, 30, 1215. It was the most largely attended of the synods held up to that time in the West. The attendance included 412 bishops, 800 abbots and priors, and a large number of delegates representing absent prelates. There were also present representatives of the emperor Frederick II., the emperor Henry of Constantinople, and the
1 Roger of Wendover says he surfeited himself with peaches and new cider. M. Paris, Luard's ed., II. 667. Shakespeare, following a later tradi tion, represents him as dying of poison administered by a monk : —
" The king, I fear is poisoned by a monk,
******* It is too late ; the life of all his blood Is touched corruptibly ; and his pure brain (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house) Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretell the ending of mortality."
— Xing John, Act V. Sc. 6 sq.
2 April 19, 1213.
S 41. THE FOURTH LATER AN COUNCIL. 175
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kings of England, France, Aragon, Hungary, Jerusalem, and other crowned heads.1
The sessions were opened with a sermon by the pope on Luke 22 : 15, " With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." It was a fanciful interpre tation of the word "passover," to which a threefold sense was given : a physical sense referring to the passage of Jerusalem from a state of captivity to a state of liberty, a spiritual sense referring to the passage of the Church from one state to a better one, and a heavenly sense referring to the transi tion from the present life to the eternal glory. The deliv erances are grouped under seventy heads, and a special decree bearing upon the recovery of Jerusalem. The head ings concern matters of doctrine and ecclesiastical and moral practice. The council's two most notable acts were the definition of the dogma of transubstantiation and the establishment of the institution of the Inquisition against heretics.
The doctrinal decisions, contained in the first two chap ters, give a comprehensive statement of the orthodox faith as it concerns the nature of God, the Incarnation, the unity of the Church, and the two greater sacraments. Here transub stantiation is defined as the doctrine of the eucharist in the universal Church, " outside of which there is no possibility of salvation."2
The council expressly condemned the doctrine of Joachim of Flore, that the substance of the Father, Son, and Spirit is not a real entity, but a collective entity in the sense that a collection of men is called one people, and a collection of
1 The invitation included the prelates of the East and West, Christian emperors and kings, the grand-masters of the Military Orders, and the heads of monastic establishments.
2 In qua idem ipse sacerdos et sacrificium Jesus Christus, cujus corpus et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continentnr, transubstantiatis pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem, etc. Mansi, XXII. 982 ; Mirbt, Quellen, 133.