Not long ago the question of the relationship between the decrees of the Fourth
Lateran Council (1215) and the *Liber Extra* or *Decretales* of Gregory IX
(1234) came up in connection with some other query.
I'd like to correct, if I may, a widespread impression that ALL of the decrees
of the Fourth Lateran and NONE of [71] 'Ad liberandam Terram sanctam' made it
into the *Liber Extra*.
A short passage from 'Ad liberandam Terram sanctam' which also includes a
passage from the IIIrd Lateran Council (against pirates and corsairs and those
who support them) was included in the *Liber Extra*. See J. Alberigo (ed.),
*Conciliorum Oeumenicorum Decreta* 3rd ed. (Bologna, 1973), p.270.
Of the two IVth Lateran decrees excluded from the *Liber Extra* (canons 42 and
49), the former pertains to the secular legal rights of the laity, the latter
to the misuse of excommunication to extort money. (See Alberigo, pp. 253, 257
respectively).
The former interests me more; here it is in English. (The Latin heading of can.
42 is *De saeculari iustitia*):
'Just as it is our will that laymen should not usurp the rights (*iura*) of
clerks, so it ought to be our will that clerks should not lay claim to the
rights (*iura*) of laymen. For which reason we forbid every clerk in future on
the pretext of ecclesiastical freedom (*praetextu ecclesiasticae libertatis*)
to extend his jurisdiction to the detriment of secular justice: let him be
content with the written laws and the customs up to now approved, in order that
by a right distribution "the things which are Caesar's" may be rendered unto
Caesar and "the things that are God's" rendered unto God.'
This is a remarkable piece of legislation, indicative of Innocent III's efforts
to strike a sensible balance between the spheres of the church and of the
world. Its exclusion from the *Liber Extra* is noteworthy in view of the
(virtually) wholesale inclusion of the Fourth Lateran into the code of medieval
canon law.
Perhaps the canon lawyers amongst us could explain its exclusion.
Gary Dickson
University of Edinburgh
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