First Council of Lyon (1245)

The conflict between papacy and Empire

The conflict did not appear suddenly in 1245. Frederick II was King of Sicily, King of the Romans, emperor crowned at Rome in 1220, then King of Jerusalem by marriage. His power enveloped Italy from both south and north: for the papacy, the lasting union of Sicily and the Empire threatened the political independence of the Roman See.^[5]

The quarrel worsened under Gregory IX. Frederick was excommunicated in 1227 for delaying his crusade, reconciled after his expedition to the East, then excommunicated again in 1239. In 1241, his son Enzio captured at sea prelates travelling to a council convened by Gregory IX; several were imprisoned, and the council could not be held.^[6]

When Innocent IV was elected on 25 June 1243, he first attempted negotiation. But the fundamental question remained: who could arbitrate Italy, the bishoprics, the pontifical territories, Sicily and the commitments of peace? The Catholic Encyclopedia sums up the decisive shift: Innocent secretly left Rome, passed through Genoa and went to Lyon to neutralize Frederick's military superiority.^[7]

Lyon as a safe haven

Lyon was not chosen by chance. The city offered a refuge beyond the direct reach of Frederick II, in an imperial city under the authority of the archbishop, close to the kingdom of France — Lyon would only be attached to France in 1312, by the treaty of 10 April. The council could thus meet in a place Western enough to attract French, English, Spanish and Italian bishops, yet far enough from imperial Italy to avoid the failure of 1241.^[8]

The letters of convocation, dated 3 January 1245 and the following days, set out a broad programme: restoring the dignity of the Church, aiding the Holy Land, helping the Latin Empire, responding to the Tartars and dealing with the conflict with the emperor. The council was therefore political in the medieval sense of the word: it concerned the public order of Christendom, the liberty of the Church and the defence of Christian peoples.^[9]

Three sessions and a debated opening

Modern introductions to the decrees distinguish a preparatory meeting on 26 June 1245 and three solemn sessions: 28 June, 5 July and 17 July. Tanner counts 26 June among the three sessions while specifying that it was probably only a preparatory meeting; the Catholic Encyclopedia retains the solemn opening of 28 June at Saint-Jean. The essential point is clear: the council reached its decisive decisions in less than a month.^[10]

This brevity explains the form of the texts. Lyon I does not resemble Lateran IV, which issued seventy constitutions of general pastoral reform. At Lyon, the urgency was narrower: Frederick II, the defence of the Latin East, the crusade, the Tartars and juridical corrections already prepared.^[11]

A relatively small assembly

The council brought together three Latin patriarchs, about 150 bishops out of some 250 prelates — the chronicle of Erfurt speaks of 250 responding prelates, and one hundred and fifty bishops signed the sentence of deposition — along with religious, clerics and secular representatives, including Baldwin II, Latin Emperor of Constantinople. Frederick II was represented by a legation led by Thaddeus of Suessa, the imperial jurist charged with defending his master.^[12]

The number is low for a general council. The reasons are explicit: Tartar invasions in the East, Saracen attacks in the Holy Land, Frederick's pressure on prelates in his zones of influence, above all Sicilians and Germans. The assembly thus had a strong French, English, Spanish and Italian colouring.^[13]

Innocent IV, the jurist pope

Innocent IV, born Sinibaldo Fieschi, is one of the great canonist popes of the 13th century. His decision to bring the conflict before a council reveals a juridical strategy: Frederick was not only fought with arms or alliances; he was subjected to a public procedure in which the pope acted as supreme judge, in the presence of the assembly.^[14]

The bull of deposition opens with a justification of the pontifical role: the pope must examine merits, weigh faults, raise the worthy and strike the guilty according to the gravity of their acts. This vocabulary is judicial. Innocent IV presents the sentence not as personal vengeance, but as a judgment rendered after deliberation with the cardinals and the council.^[15]

Frederick II, the accused emperor

Frederick II is a complex figure: a cultured sovereign, organizer of the kingdom of Sicily, founder of the University of Naples, a paradoxical crusader crowned at Jerusalem in 1229 although excommunicated, but also a redoubtable adversary of the Italian papacy. The Catholic Encyclopedia rejects simplifications: the popular accusation of the "three impostors" was unjustly attributed to Frederick, and it has not been shown that he was an atheist; his conflict was first about power, Italy and ecclesiastical authority.^[16]

This nuance is necessary to read Lyon I honestly. The pontifical sentence piles up heavy grievances; imperial propaganda replied by denouncing a dangerous papal claim to depose kings. The council thus stands at the centre of an extreme medieval debate: how far does spiritual power extend when a baptized sovereign is accused of ruining the liberty of the Church?^[17]

Thaddeus of Suessa and the imperial defence

Thaddeus of Suessa played the role of imperial advocate. Before the council, he presented the emperor's excuses and turned the accusation around: in his view, plots against Frederick had been hatched by the Church itself. At the request of the proctors of the kings of France and England, Innocent IV granted him on 29 June a delay of ten days to allow the emperor's arrival.^[18] The conflict remained so sharp that Tanner speaks of a bitter opposition between the pope and Frederick's representative.^[19]

The fact deserves note: Lyon I was not a mere proclamation without contradiction. Frederick was absent, but his defence was heard in its strongest form, and the requested delay was granted. It was only after these debates, and not without hesitation on the part of the fathers themselves before an act unprecedented in its scope, that the pope obtained the deposition of 17 July.^[20]

The four charges

The bull Ad apostolicae dignitatis apicem puts forward four main charges, among other grievances detailed at length. First, Frederick allegedly violated several oaths towards the Apostolic See and the Roman Church. Second, he allegedly broke the peace concluded with the Church. Third, he allegedly committed sacrilege by having cardinals, prelates and clerics arrested on their way to the council of Gregory IX. Fourth, he allegedly became suspect of heresy through his contempt for ecclesiastical censures and his conduct deemed scandalous.^[21]

"Four very grave crimes are put forward, among other grievances: perjury, breach of the peace, sacrilege and suspicion of heresy." — Summary of the accusations of the bull of deposition, 17 July 1245^[22]

The text therefore does not claim to depose Frederick for a single isolated fault. It builds a cumulative case: broken oaths, seized pontifical territories, pressure on the Churches of Sicily, arrest of prelates, contempt for excommunications, political dealings with Muslims and alliance with John III Vatatzes, the Greek emperor separated from Rome.^[23]

A sentence of deposition

The conclusion of the bull is radical: Innocent IV declares Frederick bound by his sins, rejected and deprived of all honour and dignity; he absolves his subjects forever from their oath of fidelity; he forbids obedience to him as emperor or king; he orders the electors freely to choose a successor in the Empire.^[24]

"We release forever from their oath those who owed him fidelity." — Innocent IV, sentence of deposition of Frederick II^[25]

For a modern reader, this sentence is the hardest passage. It can only be understood within medieval political theology, in which the Christian order rests on two distinct yet linked authorities, spiritual and temporal. Lyon I marks the point where the pope affirms that abuse of temporal power against the Church can deprive a sovereign of his title. That is why the council remains a major document in the history of relations between papacy and Empire.

Frederick's reply

Frederick replied in 1246 with a letter to the kings of Christendom. He did not merely deny facts; he turned the affair into a political warning. If the pope could depose him, he argued in substance, the other kings should fear for their own crowns. Fordham preserves an extract in which the emperor denounces a sentence rendered against him without sufficient proof and dangerous for all sovereigns.^[26]

This reply reveals the lasting issue of Lyon I. The question is not only: was Frederick guilty? It becomes: who judges the Christian sovereign when he violates his oaths, oppresses the Church or disturbs the public order of Christendom? The council gives a maximal pontifical answer; the Empire replies with a defence of royal autonomy.

Frederick was not the only sovereign struck at Lyon: a week after the solemn session of 17 July, Innocent IV also removed Sancho II of Portugal from the government of his kingdom (see below, "Portugal"). Unlike Frederick, Sancho was not solemnly deposed by the council: he was deprived of government by a distinct pontifical act, the bull Grandi non immerito.^[27]

Holy Land and crusade

Lyon I met after the loss of Jerusalem in 1244 and at the moment when Saint Louis was preparing the future Seventh Crusade. The council called for general mobilization: peace among Christians, temporary prohibition of tournaments, restriction of maritime trade with the Saracens, material support for the expedition, indulgence for those who depart or contribute according to their means.^[28]

The text takes up a logic already visible at Lateran IV: the crusading effort first presupposes reducing wars between Christian princes. Lyon I therefore ordered a general four-year peace throughout Christendom so that military energy would not be wasted in internal conflicts.^[29]

Latin Empire of Constantinople

A specific decree concerned the Latin Empire of Constantinople, founded after the Fourth Crusade and already greatly weakened. The council asked that certain ecclesiastical revenues, notably half the revenues of benefices whose holders do not reside at least six months, be assigned for three years to the relief of the Latin Empire.^[30]

The vocabulary of the decree is revealing: Constantinople is described as a beloved member whose absence disfigures the body of the Church. The council's Eastern policy thus mingled military defence, concern for ecclesial unity and support for a very fragile Latin structure, which would finally fall in 1261.

The Tartars and the fear from the East

The council also spoke of the Tartars, a frequent medieval name for the Mongols. Since the invasions of the 1240s, the Latin West had become aware of Mongol military power. The letters of convocation explicitly asked that a remedy be found against the Tartars and the other enemies of the faith.^[31]

Innocent IV would moreover send diplomatic missions to the Mongols, notably through Franciscans and Dominicans. Lyon I belongs to that moment when the Latin West discovered it must look beyond the papacy-Empire duel: the security of Christendom also depended on the East, the steppes, the trade routes and non-Christian powers.

Portugal: Sancho II removed from government

At Lyon, in the wake of the council, Innocent IV also settled the Portuguese crisis. By the bull Grandi non immerito of 24 July 1245, he declared Sancho II rex inutilis ("useless king") and entrusted the general administration of the kingdom to his brother Afonso, Count of Boulogne, the future Afonso III. Strictly speaking, this was not a solemn deposition from the royal title like Frederick II's: Sancho formally remained king, but lost effective government. The measure opened the Portuguese civil war of 1245-1247, until Sancho's exile and death at Toledo on 4 January 1248.^[32]

This case therefore does not belong to the conciliar constitutions voted by the fathers: it is a pontifical decision taken at Lyon in the context of the council, which explains why it does not rank alongside the sentence of 17 July.

Juridical rather than pastoral constitutions

The transmission of the constitutions of Lyon I is complex. Tanner distinguishes a conciliar version known chiefly through Matthew Paris, an intermediate version from the register of Innocent IV, and a definitive version published after the council. The authentic collection sent to the universities on 25 August 1245 contains twenty-two constitutions of a juridical nature; a second collection of twelve decrees appeared on 21 April 1246; a final collection was published on 9 September 1253 and largely incorporated into the Liber Sextus of 1298.^[33]

This situation explains why an oversimplified presentation must be avoided. The deposition of Frederick is indeed placed by Tanner among the statutes of the council, but the juridical constitutions were stabilized progressively. Lyon I is thus both a conciliar event of July 1245 and a moment of crystallization of pontifical canon law.

Excommunication and procedure

Several constitutions regulate the use of excommunication. One recalls that censure aims at healing, not spiritual death: it must correct, not destroy. The judge must write down the grounds of the sentence and give a copy to the condemned if he requests it.^[34]

This measure matters after decades of conflict in which censures became political weapons. Lyon I does not renounce excommunication; it seeks to make it more traceable juridically. The council thus displays a typical 13th-century tension: strengthening pontifical authority while disciplining the instruments of that authority.

Assassins, debts and administration

The constitution on assassins targets commissioners as much as perpetrators. Whoever orders the death of a Christian by assassins, or protects the killers, incurs excommunication and deposition from his dignities. The text links political murder with spiritual peril: having someone killed through intermediaries destroys the victim's body and endangers the commissioner's soul.^[35]

The constitution on ecclesiastical debts imposes inventories, written accounts and supervision. Property, charters, privileges, books, ornaments, debts and credits must be recorded so that the administration of a bishop, abbot or dignitary can be verified. The council here answers a very concrete problem: Churches ruined by debts, usury, negligence or opaque management.^[36]

An incomplete pontifical victory

On paper, Lyon I struck Frederick II at the heart of his legitimacy. In practice, the sentence did not immediately destroy his power. Claimants appeared in Germany, notably Henry Raspe then William of Holland, but Conrad, Frederick's son, kept supporters, and many laymen remained loyal to the emperor.^[37]

Frederick died in 1250, not vanquished by a decisive battle of the council, but at the end of a prolonged struggle in which Italy, Germany, Sicily, the Lombard communes and the German princes each played their part. Lyon I nevertheless opened the last phase of the political collapse of the Hohenstaufen.

A strong canonical reception

Even though the imperial deposition remains the most famous episode, the constitutions of Lyon I weighed above all through their juridical reception. Their incorporation into the Liber Sextus in 1298 gave them a place in classical canon law. They became less memories of crisis than rules of procedure and administration.^[38]

This reception explains the singularity of the council: few great dogmatic definitions, little ordinary pastoral reform, but one enormous politico-juridical act and a series of technical norms which helped refine ecclesiastical justice.

An observatory of the medieval papacy

Lyon I is one of the best observatories of the medieval papacy at its jurisdictional summit. Innocent IV acted as pontiff, judge, diplomatic leader, protector of threatened Churches, organizer of the crusade and arbiter of an imperial quarrel. The council shows what the 13th-century papacy thought it could do when temporal power directly threatened the Church.

This vision cannot be transposed mechanically to modern States. It belongs to a Christendom in which the political, the canonical and the spiritual were closely linked. But it helps to understand why debates on the liberty of the Church, the limits of civil power and pontifical authority occupied so much place in the Middle Ages.

A council more strategic than doctrinal

Lyon I does not have the dogmatic scope of Nicaea, Chalcedon, Lateran IV, Trent or Vatican I. Its importance lies elsewhere: it reveals the crisis of a model of Christendom founded on the unstable balance between pope and emperor. When that balance broke, the council became tribunal, diplomatic assembly, organ of military mobilization and laboratory of law.

A lesson on medieval councils

The council finally recalls that medieval ecumenical councils were not all built on the same model. Lateran III protected pontifical election after a schism; Lateran IV offered a dogmatic and pastoral synthesis; Lyon I settled an imperial crisis and issued juridical constitutions. Catholic ecumenicity therefore does not mean uniformity of content: each council answered a precise wound of its age.

• Read Lateran IV: the great preceding medieval council, more doctrinal and pastoral.
• Read Lyon II: the second council of Lyon, centred on union with the Greeks, the crusade and pontifical election.
• Read Vienne: another medieval council where politics, canon law and institutional crisis intersect.
• Retain the heart of the subject: Lyon I is the council of the maximal confrontation between Innocent IV and Frederick II.