The Second Lateran Council

When Pope Innocent II (shown here on the left, hanging out with St. Laurence) finally was able to be pope—after the rival antipope Anacletus II died in 1138, and his successor Victor IV stepped down—the Second Lateran Council was called. It had a thousand attendees in April 1139, and determined many policies and practices that are adhered to today.

There had been eight years of schism with the Innocent-Anacletus rivalry, and Innocent needed to assert his authority and replace the chaos of the prior years with some order.

Although Innocent had allowed the antipope Victor IV to resume his title as cardinal, in the Lateran Council all who had opposed Innocent were excommunicated, and especially King Roger II of Sicily, who had not supported Innocent.

Other, less dramatic, decisions by the Council included:

•Bishops and priests should dress modestly.
•Repeated First Lateran's injunction against marriage for priests, deacons, nuns, etc.
•Fixed the times of the Truce of God.
•Prohibition against tournaments and jousts that endangered life.
•Nuns and monks forbidden to sing the Divine Office together.

After this Council, Innocent's time as pope was brief (he died in 1143), and fairly uneventful. As he lay dying, however, a political movement began: the Commune of Rome decided that Roman politics being dominated by papal powers was no longer to their liking. They decided, in the Middle Ages, to revive the political system of the classical Roman Senate. How that worked is a tale for tomorrow.