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... The heresy had to be exterminated. In today's world the measures used in the 13th century would be seen as overly harsh, but this was a primitive time with primitive means.

Furthermore, it's not as if people were being indiscriminately killed. To be convicted of heresy, you had to be publicly spreading the pernicious doctrines of the sect, not merely privately adhering to it. If you recanted, your life would be spared. The numbers actually killed were small.

You and SuperSpin should get together on your understanding of "exterminate". Don't you understand you must be a Catholic Hater to equate "exterminate" with "kill"?

You and SuperSpin should get together on your understanding of "exterminate". Don't you understand you must be a Catholic Hater to equate "exterminate" with "kill"?

Judging by the actions of the church during the Medieval inquisition, "exterminate" meant rendering them incapable of spreading the heresy, either though imprisonment, execution, or getting them to recant. It did not involve indiscriminant slaughter of large masses of people. Even during during the peek of the Medival inquisition, the numbers of executed heretics did not amount to more than a few hundred.

Again, let me stress, the 4th Lateran Council was dealing with the Albigensian heretics, who, frankly, deserved extermination in the above sense of the word. It was not dealing with Protestants, seeing as how the council met 2 centuries before the reformation.