Constitutions of the Fourth Lateran Council

The constitutions are the council’s own enactments, read out before the assembled bishops and issued in the pope’s name with the council’s approval. All but three of them were taken into the Decretals, the official collection of church law that Gregory IX issued for use in the courts and the schools.

They are cited here by number. The first is a profession of faith; the second and third condemn named and unnamed heresies; the fourth and fifth concern the Greek church and the patriarchal sees after the Latin conquest of Constantinople; the twenty-first requires yearly confession and Easter communion; the last five concern Jews and Muslims and the planned crusade. The text shows what the council decreed. How far each decree was carried out in a given country is a separate question that the constitutions cannot answer.

On the linked page each numbered anchor sits a few lines above the heading of its constitution.