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In the medieval Roman Catholic church there were several Councils of Tours, that city being an old seat of Christianity, and considered fairly centrally located in France.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2020) |
In the medieval Roman Catholic church there were several Councils of Tours, that city being an old seat of Christianity, and considered fairly centrally located in France.
The Council was called by Perpetuus, Bishop of Tours, to address the worldliness and profligacy of the Gallic clergy. [1] Athenius, Bishop of Rennes, took part in the First Council of Tours in AD 461. The last to sign the canons was Mansuetus, episcopus Brittanorum ("bishop of the Britons" [in Armorica]). [2] Also in attendance were Leo, Bishop of Bourges, and Victurius of Le Mans, [3] and three others.
The Breton bishops declined to attend, as Bishop Eufronius claimed authority over the Breton church. [4] Among those who did attend was Chaletricus of Chartres. [5]
At the Second, it was decreed that the sanctuary gates were to remain open so that the faithful might at any time go before the altar for prayer (canon IV); a married bishop should treat his wife as a sister (canon XII). No priest or monk was to share his bed with someone else; and monks were not to have single or double cells, but were to have a common dormitory in which two or three were to take turns in staying awake and reading to the rest (canon XIV). If a monk married or had familiarity with a woman, he was to be excommunicated from the church until he returned penitent to the monastery enclosure and thereafter underwent a period of penance (canon XV). No woman was to be allowed to enter the monastery enclosure, and if anyone saw a woman enter and did not immediately expel her, he was to be excommunicated (canon XVI). Married priests, deacons and subdeacons should have their wives sleep together with the maidservants, while they themselves slept apart, and if anyone of them were found to be sleeping with his wife, he was to be excommunicated for a year and reduced to the lay state (canon XIX). [6]
The council also noted that some Gallo-Roman customs of ancestor worship were still being observed. Canon XXII decreed that anyone known to be participating in these practices was barred from receiving communion and not allowed to enter a church. [7]
The bishops of the Kingdom of Paris were particularly concerned about the Merovingian practice of seizing ecclesiastical properties in outlying areas in order to fund their internecine wars. [8]
The Council proclaimed that the entire period between Christmas and Epiphany should be considered part of the celebration, creating what became known as the twelve days of Christmas, or Christmastide. [9]
A Council of Tours in 813 decided that priests should preach sermons in rusticam romanam linguam (rustic romance language) or Theodiscam (German), [10] a mention of Vulgar Latin understood by the people, as distinct from the classical Latin that the common people could no longer understand. [11] This was the first official recognition of an early French language distinct from Latin. [12]
This council was occasioned by controversy regarding the nature of the Eucharist. It was presided over by the papal legate Hildebrand, later Pope Gregory VII. Berengar of Tours wrote a profession of faith wherein he confessed that after consecration the bread and wine were truly the body and blood of Christ. [13]
Those men who marry their kinswomen, or those women who keep an unchaste correspondence with their kinsman, and refuse to leave them, or to do penance, shall be excluded from the community of the faithful, and turned out of the church (canon IX).
Shortly before the council, Geoffrey of Clairvaux met Pope Alexander in Paris to request the canonization of Geoffrey's predecessor, Bernard. The Pope deferred at the time due to the many like requests he had received. [14] At the council, Thomas Becket requested that Anselm of Canterbury, another Archbishop of Canterbury who had had difficulties with a king, be canonized. Although Alexander authorized Becket to hold a provincial council on the matter, upon his return to England, Becket seems not to have pursued the matter. [15] Among the decrees were those addressing simony, the sale of churches and ecclesiastical goods to laymen, and heretical sects spreading over southern France from Toulouse. [16] Canon IV forbid any priest to accept any gratuity for administering Last Rites or presiding at a burial. [17]
The First Council of the Lateran was the 9th ecumenical council recognised by the Catholic Church. It was convoked by Pope Callixtus II in December 1122, immediately after the Concordat of Worms. The council sought to bring an end to the practice of the conferring of ecclesiastical benefices by people who were laymen, free the election of bishops and abbots from secular influence, clarify the separation of spiritual and temporal affairs, re-establish the principle that spiritual authority resides solely in the Church and abolish the claim of the Holy Roman Emperor to influence papal elections.
A synod is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word synod comes from the Ancient Greek σύνοδος 'assembly, meeting'; the term is analogous with the Latin word concilium'council'. Originally, synods were meetings of bishops, and the word is still used in that sense in Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not. It is also sometimes used to refer to a church that is governed by a synod.
The Second Council of the Lateran was the tenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church. It was convened by Pope Innocent II in April 1139 and attended by close to a thousand clerics. Its immediate task was to neutralise the after-effects of the schism which had arisen after the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130 and the papal election that year that established Pietro Pierleoni as the antipope Anacletus II.
Theobald of Bec was a Norman archbishop of Canterbury from 1139 to 1161. His exact birth date is unknown. Some time in the late 11th or early 12th century Theobald became a monk at the Abbey of Bec, rising to the position of abbot in 1137. King Stephen of England chose him to be Archbishop of Canterbury in 1138. Canterbury's claim to primacy over the Welsh ecclesiastics was resolved during Theobald's term of office when Pope Eugene III decided in 1148 in Canterbury's favour. Theobald faced challenges to his authority from a subordinate bishop, Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and King Stephen's younger brother, and his relationship with King Stephen was turbulent. On one occasion Stephen forbade him from attending a papal council, but Theobald defied the king, which resulted in the confiscation of his property and temporary exile. Theobald's relations with his cathedral clergy and the monastic houses in his archdiocese were also difficult.
The Quinisext Council, i.e., the Fifth-Sixth Council, often called the Council in Trullo, Trullan Council, or the Penthekte Synod, was a church council held in 692 at Constantinople under Justinian II.
The Council of Epaone or Synod of Epaone was held in September 517 at Epaone in the Burgundian Kingdom.
The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below.
The Council of Agde was a regional synod held in September 506 at Agatha or Agde, on the Mediterranean coast east of Narbonne, in the Septimania region of the Visigothic Kingdom, with the permission of the Visigothic King Alaric II.
The First Council of Orléans was convoked by Clovis I, King of the Franks, in 511. Clovis called for this synod four years after his victory over the Visigoths under Alaric II at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. The council was attended by thirty-two bishops, including four metropolitans, from across Gaul, and together they passed thirty-one decrees. The bishops met at Orléans to reform the church and construct a strong relationship between the crown and the Catholic episcopate, the majority of the canons reflecting compromise between these two institutions.
Saint Prætextatus, also spelled Praetextatus, Pretextat(us), and known as Saint Prix, was the bishop of Rouen from 549 until his assassination in 586. He appears as a prominent character in Gregory of Tours’ Historia Francorum. This is the principal source from which information on his life can be drawn. He features in many of its most notable passages, including those pertaining to his trial in Paris and his rivalry with the Merovingian Queen Fredegund. The events of his life, as portrayed by Gregory of Tours, have been important in the development of modern understandings of various facets of Merovingian society, such as law, the rivalry between kings and bishops, church councils, and the power of queens.
Arles in the south of Roman Gaul hosted several councils or synods referred to as Concilium Arelatense in the history of the early Christian church.
The Fifth Council of Orléans assembled nine archbishops and forty-one bishops. Sacerdos of Lyon presided over this council. The presence of these bishops indicates both the wide spread of Christianity in Gaul by the sixth century, and the increased influence of the Merovingian kings.
Eufronius or Euphronius was the eighth Bishop of Tours; he served from 555 to 573, and was a near relative of Gregory of Tours.
The Diocese of Anagni-Alatri is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Lazio, Italy. It has existed in its current form since 1986. In that year the Diocese of Alatri was united to the historical Diocese of Anagni. The diocese is immediately exempt to the Holy See.
The Third Council of Braga was held in 675, during the primacy of Leodegisius, and in the reign of King Wamba. It was attended by eight bishops.
Gaul was an important early center of Latin Christianity during late antiquity and the Merovingian period. By the middle of the 3rd century, there were several churches organized in Roman Gaul, and soon after the cessation of persecution, the bishops of the Latin world assembled at Arles in AD 314. The Church of Gaul passed through three crises in the late Roman period, Arianism, Priscillianism and Pelagianism. Under Merovingian rule, a number of "Frankish synods" were held, marking a particularly Germanic development in the Western Church. A model for the following Frankish synods was set by Clovis I, who organized the First Council of Orléans (511).
The Becket controversy or Becket dispute was the quarrel between Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket and King Henry II of England from 1163 to 1170. The controversy culminated with Becket's murder in 1170, and was followed by Becket's canonization in 1173 and Henry's public penance at Canterbury in July 1174.
The Council of Paris was a synod convoked by King Chlothar II in 614. It was a concilium mixtum, attended by both ecclesiastics and laymen from throughout the kingdom of the Franks. It was the first of three councils held by Chlothar. It helped secure his rule over the whole kingdom, which he only acquired in 613.
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