12th Ecumenical Council (Catholic reckoning) · Rome · A.D. 1215
The twelfth ecumenical council, the greatest of the medieval councils: it defined transubstantiation, required annual confession and communion, and issued seventy reforming constitutions and the crusade decree Ad liberandam.
Translated by Norman P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Georgetown University Press, 1990). Source: papalencyclicals.net. This modern critical translation is under copyright and is reproduced here from papalencyclicals.net, which has hosted it freely for many years. Tanner’s critical-apparatus footnotes are omitted; his introductions and the full conciliar text are retained.
Documents
- The Constitutions — Constitutions 1–70, with Tanner’s introduction — including constitution 1 on the Confession of Faith, which defines transubstantiation.
- Ad liberandam — The concluding crusade decree Ad liberandam (constitution 71), for the recovery of the Holy Land.