Education and Religious Instruction

The twelfth century saw the systematization of the Western Church’s thought in theology and canon law. By 1200, two standardizing works, Peter Lombard’s Sentences and Gratian’s Decretum, had taken a central place as the textbooks of theology and canon law, respectively, a place that they retained down to the end of the Middle Ages.¹ This systematization of thought by the preceding century’s schoolmen received the authoritative stamp of the institutional Church at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. Convoked by Innocent III and attended by 412 bishops and over 800 abbots and priors, the Council reflected Pope Innocent III’s ambitious agenda for reforming the Church’s moral life and calling a new crusade to the Holy Land.² In many ways, Lateran IV set the pattern for the thought and practice of the Catholic Church down to the present day.