Firru Lateran Council (1512-17).—When elected pope, Julius II promised under oath that he would soon convoke a general council. Time passed, however, and this promise was not fulfilled. Consequently, certain dissatisfied cardinals, urged, also, by Emperor Maximilian and Louis XII, convoked a council at Pisa and fixed 1 September, 1511, for its opening. This event was delayed until 1 October. Four cardinals then met at Pisa provided with proxies from three absent cardinals. Several bishops and abbots were also there, as well as ambassadors from the King of France. Seven or eight sessions were held, in the last of which Pope Julius II was suspended, whereupon the prelates withdrew to Lyons. The pope hastened to oppose to this conciliabulum a more numerously attended council, which he convoked, by the Bull of 18 July, 1511, to assemble 19 April, 1512, in the church of St. John Lateran. The Bull was at ° once a canonical and a polemical document. In it the pope refuted in detail the reasons alleged by the cardinals for their Pisa conciliabulum. He declared that his conduct before his elevation to the pontificate was a pledge of his sincere desire for the celebration of the council; that since his elevation he had always sought opportunities for assembling it; that for this reason he had sought to re-establish peace among Christian princes; that the wars which had arisen against his will had no other object than the re-establishment of pontifical authority in the States of the Church. He then reproached the rebel cardinals with the irregularity of their conduct and the unseemliness of convoking the Universal Church independently of its head. He pointed out to them that the three months accorded by them for the assembly of all bishops at Pisa was too short, and that said city presented none of the advantages requisite for an assembly of such importance. Finally, he declared that no one should attach any significance to the act of the cardinals. The Bull was signed by twenty-one cardinals. The French victory of Ravenna (11 April, 1512) hindered the opening of the council before 3 May, on which day the fathers met in the Lateran Basilica. There were present fifteen cardinals, the Latin Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, ten archbishops, fifty-six bishops, some abbots and generals of religious orders, the ambassadors of King Ferdinand, and those of Venice and of Florence. Convoked by Julius II, the assembly survived him, was continued by Leo X, and held its twelfth, and last, session on 16 March, 1517. In the third session Matthew Lang, who had represented Maximilian at the Council of Tours, read an act by which that emperor repudiated all that had been done at Tours and at Pisa. In the fourth session the advocate of the council] demanded the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. In the eighth (17 December, 1513), an act of King Louis XII was read, disavowing the Council of Pisa and adhering to the Lateran Council. In the next session (5 March, 1514) the French bishops made their submission, and Leo X granted them absolution from the censures pronounced against them by Julius II. In the tenth session (4 May, 1515) the pope published four decrees; the first of these sanctions the institution of montes pietatis, or pawn shops, under strict ecclesiastical supervision, for the purpose of aiding the necessitous poor on the most favourable terms; the second relates to ecclesiastical liberty and the episcopal dignity, and condemns certain abusive exemptions; the third forbids, under pain of excommunication, the printing of books without the permission of the ordinary of the diocese; the fourth orders a peremptory citation against the French in regard to the Pragmatic Sanction. The latter was solemnly revoked and condemned, and the concordat with Francis I approved, in the eleventh session (19 December, 1516). Finally, the council promulgated a decree prescribing war against the Turks and ordered the levying of tithes of all the benefices in Christendom for three years.
Other Lateran Councils.—Other councils were held at the Lateran, among the best known being those in 649 against the Monothelite heresy, in 823, 864, 900, 1102, 1105, 1110, 1111, 1112, and 1116. In 1725, Benedict XIII called to the Lateran the bishops directly dependent on Rome as their metropolitan see, i. e. archbishops without suffragans, bishops immediately subject to the Holy See, and abbots exercising eee eoopal jurisdiction. Seven sessions were held between 15 April and 29 May, and divers regulations were promulgated concerning the duties of bishops and other pastors, concerning residence, ordinations, and the periods for the holding of synods. The chief objects were the suppression of Jansenism and the solemn confirmation of the Bull “ Unigenitus”, which was declared a rule of faith demanding the fullest obedience.
Coll. Regia conciliorum, XXVII, col. 32,120, 434; Marca, Concordantia sacerdotii et imperii, II (Paris, 1663), 363,436; Mawnst, Cone. ampliss. collectio, XXI, col. 277, 523; XXII, col. 34, 210; ALEXANDER, Hist. eccles., VII (Venice, 1775), 299-302; 347-58; Lessius, Discussio decretimagni concilii Lateranensis (Mainz, 1613); Wrpprineronus, Discussio discussionis decreti Lateranenis (London, 1618); Watucu and Buddie, Commentatio historico-theologica de conciliis Lateranensibus rei christiane noxtis (Jena, 1725); Herein, Conciliengeschichte, V (Freiburg im Br., 1886), 378, 438, 710, 872; Rivineron, The Primitive Church and the See of Peter (London, 1894); Pastor, History of the Popes, tr. ANTROBUs, V (London, 1902), passim.
H. Leclercq.