The German Episcopacy and the Implementation of the Decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1216-1245

This comprehensive study of efforts by the German episcopacy to effect reform in the spirit of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) reveals both enthusiasm for and indifference to the injunctions of Pope Innocent III who sought through the Council and the ensuing activities of the episcopacy a regeneration of the medieval Church.

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This volume deals with efforts by the German episcopacy to implement the reform decrees issued by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council in November 1215 within the six ecclesiastical provinces of Bremen, Cologne, Magdeburg, Mains, Salzburg and Trier over three decades: its primary focus is upon the use of provincial and diocesan synods, episcopal visitations, and general chapters for the regular clergy to the end that “...evils may be uprooted, virtues implanted, mistakes corrected, morals reformed, heresies extirpated, the faith strengthened,...and salutary decrees enacted for the higher and lower clergy.” It examines the methods and the personalities involved, the relationships between the ecclesiastical leadership of Germany and the Roman Curia, and it assesses the impact of these efforts at a most opportune and critical point in the history of the medieval Church.