Interval Between The Fifth And Sixth Oecumenical Synods, Until The Beginning Of The Monothelite Controversies.

CHAPTER -The Synods Until The End Of The Sixth Century.

SEC. 284. THE FRANKISH SYNODS ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

FROM the close of the previous period there elapsed more than a whole century, before Christendom again enjoyed the grand spectacle of an OEcumenical Council. In so much greater number we meet with a series of smaller, yet in many respects not unimportant Synods; and if hitherto the principal localities of such assemblies has been in the East, the majority are now celebrated in the West, especially in Spain and in France.

Soon after the outbreak of the controversy on the three chapters, and before the assembling of the fifth OEcumenical Council, five Synods were held in France, the description of which has been deferred to this place, in order not to interrupt the connection in the history of the controversy on the three chapters.

To the year 549 belongs the great fifth Synod of Orleans, the minutes of which were subscribed on October 28 of that year by seven archbishops, forty-three bishops, and twenty-one representatives of bishops. The seven archbishops were, according to the order followed in the minutes:

Sacerdos of Lyons (probably president), Aurelian of Arles, Hesychius of Vienne, Nicetius of Treves (Trier), Desideratus of Bourges, Aspasius of Elusa (Eause), and Constitutus of Sens. The bishop of the diocese of Orleans was not present, as he had been exiled on false accusations, and our Synod had been called by King Childebert I. of Paris (son of Chlodwig), among other things, also for the judging of his matters. He was found to be innocent, and restored. Besides this, a heresy which had become widespread in the neighborhood of Orleans is said to have rendered the calling of the Council necessary. The old biography of Bishop Domitian of Trajectum on the Maas, edited by the Bollandists (ad 7 Maii ), to which we are indebted for this information, speaks of the Arian heresy. But the first canon of our Synod refers to Monophysitism and Nestorianism, and as it falls quite in the time of the controversy about the three chapters, we may assume that the defenders of the three chapters reproached their opponents with Monophysitism, whilst these threw back the reproach of Nestorianism, or that the two parties had actually relapsed into these heresies. The biography goes on: “Immediately after the opening of the Synod the heretics had maintained their heresy with great pomp of eloquence, but Bishop Domitian, chosen by his colleagues as speaker, had overcome them by testimonies from Holy Scriptures, and had converted very many. The stiff-necked had been excommunicated, and exiled by the princes.”

The twenty-four canons of this Synod ordain:— 1. The rejection of the Euctychian and Nestorian heresies. 2. No bishop shall excommunicate an orthodox man for unimportant causes. 3. No bishop, priest, or deacon may have a strange woman in his house; and even women related to him must not be in his house at unsuitable hours. 4. If a cleric of any degree whatever returns again to the nuptial bed, he shall for his whole lifetime be deprived of the dignity of his Ordo (ab honore accepti ordinis ), and deposed from his office (ab officio ); but the communion must be given to him. 5. No bishop may advance any cleric or lector, or claim him as his own, unless his bishop assents. If, however, he does so, he must not say Mass for six months, and the person promoted by him shall be suspended ab honore vel officio , according to the judgment of his own bishop (vel = et , see vol. 3, sec. 164). 6. No bishop must ordain a slave or freedman without the assent of his master or emancipator. If he does so he must not say Mass for six months, and the person ordained by him must be given back to his master, but must be treated by him in accordance with his (clerical) position. If this is not done the bishop must give the master two other slaves and demand back the ordained person for his own Church. 7. When slaves are liberated by their masters the Church must protect their liberty. 8. If the bishop has died in a city, no other bishop must ordain clerics or dedicate altars in that city or in the rural parishes during the vacancy of the see, or take away anything of the property of the Church. 9. No layman must be ordained bishop within a year of his conversion (see sec. 237, c. 2). Within this period he shall receive accurate instruction in clerical discipline and rules from learned and approved men. 10. No one must obtain a bishopric by presents or purchase, but with the assent of the King after his election by clergy and laity, in accordance with the ancient canons; the new bishop shall be consecrated by the metropolitan or his representative in union with the comprovincials. If anyone purchases a bishopric he is to be deposed. 11. No one must be forced upon a diocese as bishop against their will, and the citizens and clergy may not be constrained by the powerful to assent to such an intrusion. One who is intruded by force loses the episcopal dignity forever. 12. No bishop shall during his lifetime have a successor given to him, or another bishop put in his place, unless he is deposed for a capital offense. 13. No one must keep back or alienate what has been given to churches, monasteries, xenodochia [guest-houses for the reception of pilgrims, etc.], or the poor. If anyone does so he shall, in accordance with the old canons, as a murderer of the poor (secs. 220 and 222), be excommunicated until he gives back what he has withdrawn. 14. No bishop or other cleric, and in general no one, must appropriate or take in possession the goods of another church. 15. In regard to the xenodochion, which King Childebert and his consort Ultrogotho founded in Lyons, the bishop of Lyons must claim none of its goods for himself or his church. And, in general, if anyone of any position attacks the rights of this xenodochion, he shall be smitten with perpetual anathema (cf. Kellner, Das Buss- und Strafverfahren , Trier 1863, S. 84). 16. Whoever wishes to take back what he himself or one of his forefathers has presented to priests or churches or other holy places, shall, as a murderer of the poor (see c. 13), be smitten with excommunication. 17. If anyone has a dispute with a bishop or administrator of Church property (actor ), let him first endeavor to have a peaceful understanding with him. If he does not succeed, let him appeal to the metropolitan. If the accused bishop, after two admonitions of the metropolitan, neither satisfies his opponent nor himself appears before the metropolitan, he must be shut out a caritate of the metropolitan (see vol. 3, secs. 164 and 200, c. 20, note 1), until he appears and gives satisfaction as to the contention. If it is shown that he was molested without reason, the unjust accuser shall be excommunicated for a year.

If, however, the metropolitan has been approached twice by one of his comprovincial bishops in a case and has not heard him, the bishop may bring his affair before the next Synod, and that which the comprovincials declare to be right he shall observe. 18. Renewal of c. 19 of the second Synod of Arles (vol. 3, sec. 164). 19. Girls who enter a convent of their own free will, or are offered by their parents, must remain a year in the garment that they wore on their admission. In a convent in which they are not continuously confined, they must wear the garment they brought with them three years, and not till then receive the habit of the order. If, subsequently, they go out and marry, they, together with their husbands, must be excommunicated. If they separate again from these, they may again obtain communion. 20. Prisoners should be visited by the archdeacon or provost of the Church every Sunday, so that their need may, in accordance with the command of God, be lightened by mercy. The bishop must appoint a faithful and diligent person to care for the needs of prisoners. The necessary cost they must receive from the Church. 21. The bishop must specially care for lepers, for their food and clothing. 22. If a slave has fled into a church (for asylum), in accordance with the ancient ordinances (sec. 224), he must not be given back until his master has assured him of forgiveness on oath. If the master does not keep his promise, and in anyway tortures his slave, he must be shut out from all intercourse with the faithful. If, however, he has made that promise, and the slave will not leave the church, then his master may take him by force. If the master is a heathen or a sectary, he must produce several good Christian persons as guarantors for his promise, that he will forgive his servant. 23. A provincial Synod shall take place every year. 24. The old canons shall remain in force. Soon after the end of the fifth Synod of Orleans, probably in the same year, 549, ten of the bishops who had been there met in a new Council at Clermont in Auvergne, Arvernense II ., among them the four archbishops named above, of Vienne, Treves, Bourges, and Elusa. The real reason of this new assembly is unknown, and we know of it only that it repeated the canons of the Synod of Orleans. According to the codex which Sirmond found at Toulouse, they had done this only in reference to the first fifteen canons and the seventeenth; but Mansi discovered a second codex which contained an excerpt from all of these canons, excepting only the one before last, and ascribed them to our Synod of Clermont. Still earlier Peter de Marca and Peter la Lande had obtained from the archives of the church of Urgel (in Spain) the Praefatio of our Synod, which is nothing else but the uninteresting Praefatio of the fifth Council of Orleans increased by four lines. On the 1st of June, probably of the year 550, a Synod was held at Toul, by command of King Theodebald of Austrasia, under the presidency of Archbishop Nicetius of Treves. The Acts are no longer extant, but we still possess a statement relating to this assembly from Archbishop Mappinius of Reims to Nicetius, to the effect that King Theodebald (whom Mappinius calls his “Son and Lord”) had summoned him to Toul to a Synod on the 1st of June without saying anything of its purpose. He had therefore immediately petitioned for further information, and had learnt that Nicetius had been in different ways oppressed and persecuted by certain Frankish magnates whom he had excommunicated on account of incestuous marriages. Mappinius assures him now of his sympathy, but does not conceal his view that he ought to have applied to him (his neighbor metropolitan) rather than to the King. Finally, he remarks that he had received the King’s second letter only on the 27th or 28th of May, and therefore it was impossible that he should appear at Toul on the 1st of June. It seems almost as though he had been unwilling to come, as Reims and Toul are only about forty hours distant, and both belonged to Austrasia.

A quite short account of a Synod at Metz we owe to St. Gregory of Tours (Hist . Franc . 4, 6, 7). He relates: “After the death of Bishop St. Gallus of Clermont, the bishops who were present for the funeral wanted to consecrate Cato, a priest of that place, as his successor. Out of pride, however, he refused to accept consecration from them, saying: ‘Return to your cities, nam ego canonice assumpturus sum honorem .’” What Cato meant Gregory does not tell us, but he adds: “Elected by the majority of the clergy of Clermont to be bishop, even before his ordination Cato oppressed Archdeacon Cautinus, on which account he fled to King Theodebald. The King now summoned a Synod to Metz, and by this Cautinus was consecrated bishop of Clermont.” The time of this Synod cannot be determined more exactly than that it could not have taken place before the year 549 nor after 555; for in 549 Bishop Gallus of Clermont was present at the Synod of Orleans just mentioned, and in 555 King Theodebald of Austrasia died.

About the same time falls the second Synod of Paris. There were present six metropolitans: Sapaudus of Arles (the successor of St.

Aurelian, sec. 261), who was probably president, Hesychius of Vienne, Nicetius of Treves (Trier), Probian of Bourges, Constitutus of Sens, and Leontius of Bordeaux, together with twenty-one other bishops. The synodal decree says: “King Childebert convoked the Synod in order to arrange several matters affecting the Church, and particularly to provide for the see of Paris, whose bishop, Sassaric, had recently been deposed.

The Acts passed in regard to him were read; and when they came to the place at which Sassaric confessed his fault before several bishops and other clergy (the judges), the latter were requested by the Synod to make a fresh declaration on the subject, and declared that Sassaric had, in fact, made such a voluntary confession. Another bishop, Ardacius, further testified that he had heard the same from Sassaric’s own mouth. Thereupon the Synod unanimously confirmed the sentence of the previous judges, that Sassaric should henceforth live in a monastery, and according to his own confession deserved deposition, since the offense of which he had been guilty (its nature is not mentioned) was regarded as capital by the old canons. The archbishop (of Sens), however, was requested, in accordance with the ordinance of the recent Synod of Orleans in regard to capital offenses (canon 12), to ordain a new bishop for Paris. So far the minutes go. From another source we know that now Eusebius was appointed bishop of Paris. As, however, St. Germanus was present as bishop of Paris at the third Synod of Paris, A.D. 557, as we shall shortly see, Eusebius must have been dead in that year; so that Le Cointe, Remi Ceillier, and others have thought it advisable to remove the second Synod of Paris to the year 551, and not, with Sirmond, Hardouin, and others, to place it in the year 555.

To the same year, 551, belonged also the Synod of Elusa, held by Archbishop Aspasius of Elusa (Eause) with his suffragans. This Synod was formerly entirely unknown to us until Professor Dr. Friedrich published its minutes from a parchment codex in the Court and State Library at Munich, belonging to the eighth or ninth century (formerly belonging to the monastery of Diessen). Dr. Friedrich’s essay, Drei unedirte Concilien der Merovingerzeit [“Three Unedited Councils of the time of the Merovingians”], appeared A.D. 1867. The seven canons of this Synod are, in their principal contents, of the following purport:— 1. Quicumque post acceptam poenitentiam ad thorum uxorum suarum, sicut canis ad vomitum, redisse probantur (see sec. 211), vel aliis, tam viri quam feminae, se illicite conjunxisse noscuntur, tam a communione quam a limitibus ecclesiae vel convivio catholicorum sequestratos esse cognoscant. 2. Si quis vero episcopus, presbyter, diaconus secum extraneam mulierem praeter has personas, quas sancta synodus (sec. 222) in solatio clericorum esse constituit, habere forte praesumpserit, aut ad cellarii secretum, tam ingenuam quam ancillam, ad nullam (? ullam) familiaritatem habere voluerit, deposito omni sacerdotali sacrificio remotus se a liminibus sanctae ecclesiae vel ( = et, see 5th Syn. of Orleans, c. 5, above) ab omni conloquio catholicorum suprascriptae synodi ordine feriantur. 3. De incantatoribus volens (?), qui instinctu diaboli cornua praecantare dicuntur, si superiores forte personae (sint), a liminibus excommunicatione pellantur ecclesia, humiliores vero personae vel servi, correpti ad judicium fustigentur, ut si se timore Dei corrigi forte dissimulant, velut scriptum est, verberibus corrigantur. 4. Sacerdotum vero vel ( = et) omnium clericorum negotia ( = processes), ut non apud laicos, nisi apud suos comprovinciales episcopos suas exerceant actiones, sanctae synodi Arausicanae praecepta convenit custodire, ea videlicet ratione, ut si quis suprascripta praecepta contempserit, excommunicatione omnium ac detestatione dignus habeatur. Pariter, ut si quis spreto suo pontifice ad laici patrocinia fortasse confugerit, cum fuerit a suo episcopo repetitus, et laicus eum defensare voluerit, similis eos excommunicationis poena percellat. 5. De ordinatione vero clericorum id convenit observari, ut cum presbyter aut diaconus ab episcopo petitur ordinandus, praecedentibus diebus viii. populus quemquam ordinandum esse cognoscat, et si qua vitia in eo populus forte esse cognoscit, ante ordinationem dicere non desistat; ut si nullus comprobatione certa contradicturus exstiterit, absque ulla hesitatione benedictionem inspector mereatur accipere. 6. Si quis vero pro remedio animae suae mancipia vel loca sanctis ecclesiis vel monasteriis offerre curaverit, conditionem quam qui donaverit scripserit, in omnibus observetur, pariter et de familiis ecclesiae id intuitu pietatis et justitiae convenit observari, ut familiae Dei leviore, quam privatorum servi, opere teneantur, ita ut quarta tributi vel quodlibet operis sui, benedicentes Deo, ex praesente tempore sibi a sacerdotibus concessa esse congaudeant. 7. Nam sicut patrum sanctorum nostrorum praecepta declarant, semel in anno sanctas congregationes episcoporum per loca, qua convenetit, specialiter convenit observari; quam rem si quis nostrorum fortasse contempserit, usque ad aliam congregationem sit (a) charitate fratrum suspensus. Kal. Feb. anno xl. regni domini nostri Hildiberthi et Hlotari regis.

Besides the Metropolitan Aspasius, the subscribers were Julian (of Bigorra), Proculeianus (of Auscii = Auch), Liberius (of Acqs), Theodore (of Conserans), Amelius (of Cominges), and three other suffragans whose sees cannot be ascertained.

The first two Synods which followed immediately after the fifth OEcumenical Council were, like it, occasioned by the controversy on the three chapters, and have therefore already been described by us (secs. and 278). I refer to the Synods of Jerusalem and Aquileia, between 553 and 555, of which the former agreed with the fifth OEcumenical Council, while the latter opposed it. Whether the bishops of Illyricum, under the Metropolitan Frontinus of Salona in Dalmatia, also held a Synod there, and gave common expression in opposition to the decrees of the fifth OEcumenical Council, must remain doubtful (sec. 277 above).

The series of Frankish Synods was again continued, in the year 554, by the fifth of Arles. The short minutes still extant, of date June 29, 554 (fortythird year of Childebert the son of Chlodwig), show that Archbishop Sapandus of Arles presided. Besides him, eighteen other bishops and representatives of bishops subscribed, most, but not all, belonging to the ecclesiastical province of Arles. The Praefatio of the minutes speaks of the provincial Synods, that by them the old canons should be brought again to remembrance, and new ordinances should be drawn up.

Canon 1 orders that all the comprovincial bishops, in regard to the oblations which are offered in the church, should be required to imitate the practice of the Metropolitan Church of Arles, under penalty of exclusion a charitate fratrum . (See c. 17 of Orleans 5, above.) 2. Monasteries and the discipline of monks belong to the bishop in whose diocese the monastery is situated. 3. No abbot must, without permission of the bishop, be absent front his monastery for a length of time. 4. No priest must depose a deacon or subdeacon without knowledge of the bishop. If he does so, the person deposed shall be received back into communion, and he who deposed him shall be excommunicated for a year. 5. The bishop must have a care of the convents for women in his city, and the abbess must do nothing against the rule. 6. The clergy must not deteriorate the property of the Church which the bishop intrusts to them. If they do so, the younger of them (under the subdeacon) must be chastised, the elder must be regarded as murderers of the poor. 7. No bishop must advance a strange clergyman to any ecclesiastical rank without a letter from his bishop. If he does so, the person ordained loses the dignity received (ab honore , quem acceperit , remotus ), and must not discharge the function committed to him; the person ordaining will be excluded from communion for three months. Cf. vol. 3, secs. 109, 113, 162, 164; above, 209, 237, 246; particularly canon 20 of Chalcedon, note 1, vol. 3, sec. 200.

We know but very little of a Council in Britanny (the place is unknown), probably in the year 555, at which Bishop Macliavus or Maclivus of Vannes was punished with excommunication because, after the death of his brother Chanaus, Count of Britanny, he abandoned the clerical position, assumed the government of the country, and was restored to his wife, whom he had married before his entrance into the clerical state. In the same way nothing is known exactly of the holding of the third Synod at Paris. As, however, Bishop Euphronius of Tours was present there, and the seventh year of his episcopate coincides with the second year of King Sigebert, i .e . with the year 563, we assume the year 556 as the first year of the administration of that bishop, and in that case our Synod could not have been held before 556. Sirmond and others place it therefore in the year 557. Archbishop Probianus of Bourges presided. Besides him there were present Archbishop Praetextatus of Rouen and thirteen other bishops, scarcely any of whose sees are named. The most famous was St. Germanus of Paris. The ten canons have the following contents:— 1. If anyone has Church property in his possession in an unrighteous way, and holds it back, he shall be excommunicated until he ceases from his fault. Such people are murderers of the poor (see above in this sec.). The bishop, however, before he punishes them, must send forth an admonitio manifesta , so that the unrighteous possessor may be able to give back the property of the Church. If the latter neglects this restitution, and if he has to be compelled to it, then a speedy chastisement shall fall upon the robber. Moreover, no one, on pain of excommunication, in order to retain any Church property, shall maintain that it lies in another kingdom (than the Church to which it belongs), for the power of God knows no boundaries of kingdoms. So no one must retain any Church property under the pretext that it was granted to him in former times by the King. In opposition to such people the bishops in former times would have supported their claims upon the canons, and taken possession; but now, almost overwhelmed by losses, they must finally do so. If the unrighteous possessor of any Church property lives in another diocese, then shall the bishop (whose Church property he has in possession) inform the other bishop of it, so that the latter may either, by his exhortations, bring him to a better mind, or inflict canonical punishment upon him. If anyone, in the earlier times of the schism, has taken possession of Church goods, with permission of King Chlodwig, of blessed memory, and left it to his children, these must restore them. The bishops must not only preserve the documents of the diocese, but also the property of the Church, and must practically defend it. 2. In the same way as robbers of Church property must those be punished who encroach upon the property of the bishop. 3. A bishop, too, must not possess foreign property; he must restore it even without regard to the fact that the King has given it to him. 4. Incestuous marriages are forbidden, namely, those with the widow of one’s brother, with one’s stepmother, with the widow of one’s uncle (father or mother’s brother), with the sister of one’s wife, with one’s daughter-in-law, with one’s aunt (mother or father’s sister), with one’s stepdaughter and step-granddaughter. 5. No one must marry a virgin consecrated to God, either by rape or by courtship. So neither must marriage be contracted with those who have laid aside secular garments, and have vowed widowhood or virginity, on penalty of permanent excommunication. 6. No one must ask foreign property of the King. No, one must seize a widow or a maiden, or ask her of the King, without the will of her parents, under penalty of excommunication. 7. No bishop must receive one who has been excommunicated by another bishop. 8. No one must be forced upon the city as bishop unless he has been elected with entire freedom by laity and clergy. He must not be appointed by command of the Prince, or in any other way against the will of the metropolitan and the comprovincials. If anyone ventures, leaning upon the royal command, to force himself into this high place, he must not be received by the comprovincials. If a comprovincial comes into union with him, he must be shut out from the communion of his colleagues. In regard to the dedication of bishops already accomplished, the Synod decrees that the metropolitan, with his comprovincials, or the neighboring bishops chosen by him in common consultation, shall decide (as to their validity). 9. If descendants of slaves have been appointed (by their dying masters) to certain services at the graves, whether they are given over to the heirs or to the Church for protection, the conditions upon which they were discharged (set free), (so) the will of the departed in regard to them must in all ways be fulfilled. In case the Church entirely frees them from these services for the exchequer, they and their descendants must remain under the permanent protection of the Church, and pay money for protection. 10. All absent bishops are required to subscribe the foregoing ordinances. Some other canons attributed to our Synod by the collectors of canons, Burchard of Worms and Ivo of Chartres, Mansi has placed in his collection; but they certainly belong to the time of Lewis the Pious. Cf.

Mansi, l .c . p. 749 sqq.

SEC. 285. THE SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 560 AND 575.

The Collections of Councils mention three ancient British Synods at Llandaff in the year 560, held by Bishop Oudoceus in this his episcopal city in South Wales, in order to pronounce excommunication on three chieftains (Kings) for murders committed, and to impose upon them penances after their professing penitence. The brief accounts of them which have come to us show that they were only diocesan Synods, which were a little removed from each other in time, but the date of which cannot be more accurately given. The information given by the Libellus Synodicus on two Synods at Constantinople and Antioch is uncertain. Of these the former was held A.D. 565, under the Emperor Justinian and by his wish, and confirmed the doctrine of the Monophysite Julian of Halicarnassus that the body of Christ was incorruptible (see sec. 208), and had as its consequence the banishment of the Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople, who refused to subscribe. The other at Antioch anathematized the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon. In the year 562 a Synod was held in Ireland, at Teilte (now Teltowe, a village near Kells, in County Meath). St. Columba, of a royal house, abbot of Derry and other Irish monasteries, when he was on a visit to his former teacher, Abbot Finnian, had privately made a copy of his Psalter . Finnian claimed this as his property (because a copy of his book), and the Irish Over-King Diarmid, Columba’s cousin, decided for Finnian. By this, and also through violation of the Church’s right of asylum by the King, Columba was so embittered that he stirred up an insurrection against him.

It came to a bloody battle, and Diarmid was forced to flee. In consequence of this the Synod of Teilte, without inviting Columba, passed a sentence of excommunication upon him, because he had been guilty of causing bloodshed. Columba himself appeared at the Synod, and the excommunication was removed. But it was laid upon Columba that he must convert as many heathens as there were Christians who had perished through his fault. He therefore left his native country, and became the apostle of Scotland. The manuscript on which so much depended, was subsequently venerated by the Irish as a kind of national, military, and religious palladium, and still exists in the possession of the O’Donnell family. The Synod of Braga, A.D. 563 (in the Spanish province of Galicia), is called the second at that place, reckoning as the first the supposed Synod of A.D. 411 (see vol. 3, sec. 118). There were present seven bishops of the province of Galicia, with their metropolitan, Lucretius of Braga, and many priests and clerics. At the very beginning the metropolitan declared that the bishops had long wished for a Synod, but that it had now, for the first time, become possible through the approval of King Ariamir. Galicia was occupied by the Suevi, and formed a separate kingdom under Arian princes. These were naturally averse to the meeting of the orthodox bishops in a Synod; but the case was altered when Ariamir, whom Gregory of Tours calls Charrarich, converted about A.D. 560 by St. Martin, bishop of Dumium, came over to the Catholic Church. Then was held the Synod of Braga, May 1, 563. On the proposal of the President, they first took up the subject of the Faith, in opposition to the Priscillianist heresy.

We have already seen (vol. 3, sec. 167) that Pope Leo the Great called upon the Spanish bishops to take vigorous measures against the Priscillian heresy, and that, on his inducement, two great Spanish Synods occupied themselves with this matter, one at Toledo (of the bishops of the civil provinces of Tarragona, Carthagena, Lusitania, and Baetica), and the other in the province of Galicia (in municipio Celenensi , vol. 3, sec. 167). Only of the former do we still possess the Acts, namely, a creed and eighteen canons. Both documents were now again read at Braga, and seventeen new capitula added in condemnation of the Priscillianist heresy, with the introductory remark: If anyone, cleric, monk, or layman, so think or defend such doctrine, he shall be cut off as an unworthy member from the body of the Catholic Church. The canons are as follows:— 1. If anyone does not confess that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three persons of one substance, or power, or might, as the Catholic and apostolic Church teaches; and if, further, anyone recognizes only a single Person, so thatHE who is the Son is also the Father and the Paraclete, as Sabellius and Priscillian teach, let him be anathema. 2. If anyone introduces any names of the Godhead, besides those of the Holy Trinity, maintaining that in the Godhead there is a trinity of the Trinity, as the Gnostics and Priscillianists teach, let him be anathema. 3. If anyone says that the Son of God, our Lord, did not exist before\parHE was born of Mary, as Paul of Samosata, Photinus, and Priscillian taught, let him be anathema. 4. If anyone does not reverence the birthday of Christ, but fasts on this day and on Sunday, because he does not believe that Christ was born in true human nature, like Cerdo, Marcion, Manichaeus, and Priscillian, let him be anathema. 5. If anyone believes that the souls of men and angels have come from the substance of God, as Manichaeus and Priscillian maintain, let him be anathema. 6. If anyone says that the souls of men sinned first in the heavenly abodes, and therefore were cast down into human bodies upon the earth, let him be anathema. 7. If anyone denies that the devil was at the beginning a good angel, created by God, and maintains that he came up from chaos and darkness, and had no creator, but is himself the principal and the substance of evil, as Manichaeus and Priscillian taught, let him be anathema. 8. If anyone believes that, because the devil has produced some things in the world, he thus also makes, by his own power, thunder and lightning, and storms, and drought, as Priscillian taught, let him be anathema. 9. If anyone believes that the souls and bodies of men are subjected by destiny to certain stars, as the heathen and Priscillian taught, etc. 10. If anyone believes that the twelve signs (of the zodiac), which the mathematicians are wont to observe, are distributed over the particular members of the soul and the body, and assigned to the names of the patriarchs, as Priscillian taught, etc. 11. If anyone condemns matrimony, and abhors procreation, like Manichaeus and Priscillian, etc. 12. If anyone says that the formation of the human body is a work of the devil, and that conception in the womb of woman is produced by the action of demons, and therefore does not believe in the resurrection of the flesh, like Manichaeus and Priscillian, etc. 13. If anyone says that the production of all flesh generally is not a work of God, but of evil angels, as Manichaeus and Priscillian taught, etc. 14. If anyone declares flesh meat, which God has given to man for use, to be unclean, and so abstains from it, not for the chastening of the body, but because of its supposed uncleanness, so that he does not use even vegetables cooked with flesh, like Manichaeus and Priscillian, etc. 15. If a cleric or monk adopts any other woman besides his mother, or sister, or aunt (thia ), or other near blood relation, and keeps them with him and dwells with them, as the Priscillianist sect teaches, etc. 16. If anyone on the Thursday before Easter, at the Caena Domini , does not, at the appointed time, after hours, keep Mass (missas non tenet ) fasting in the church, but, after the manner of the Priscillianist sect, keeps the festival of that day, after terce, with their fast discontinued by a Mass for the dead, etc. 17. If anyone reads the Scriptures, as falsified by Priscillian in accordance with his heresy, or the treatises of Dictinius which he wrote before his confession, or any other books of heretics, which they have invented under the names of patriarchs, prophets, or apostles, and receives or defends their impious fabrications, etc.

After the completion of this first business of the Synod, many older disciplinary canons of OEcumenical and special Synods were read, and also a letter from Pope Vigilius to Profuturus, the former bishop of Braga, of date 538, with reverent recognition of the authority of the apostolic see; and then twenty-two new capitula were drawn up for the securing of greater uniformity in ecclesiastical matters: 1. One and the same kind of psalmody shall be used in morning and evening divine services everywhere, and nowhere, particularly not in monasteries, must special uses prevail. 2. At the vigils or ( = and) Masses of festal days the same lessons shall be read everywhere in the church. 3. Bishops must greet the people in the same manner as the priests, with Dominus vobiscum , as has been the practice in the whole of the East since the time of the apostles, and they must not adopt the alteration introduced by the Priscillianists. 4. Mass must be celebrated everywhere in accordance with the formulary (Ordo ), which was sent in writing from Rome, and received by Profuturus, a former metropolitan of Braga. 5. So in regard to baptism. 6. Bishops shall sit according to the time of their ordination; but the metropolitan has the first rank. 7. All Church revenues are to be divided into three parts: for the bishop, for the other clergy, for the repair and the luminaria of the church (sec. 222). Of the latter portion the archpresbyter, or archdeacon who administers for him, must give an account to the bishop. 8. No bishop must ordain a strange cleric without written permission from his bishop. 9. Deacons are not to wear the Ovarium (Stole) under the tunic (tunicella, dalmatic), but on the shoulder (in sight), because otherwise they could not be distinguished from the subdeacons. 10. Not every lector, but only the subdeacons are allowed to bear the holy vessels of the altar. 11. Lectors are not allowed to sing in church in secular clothing, nor to wear long hair. 12. Besides the Psalms of the Bible of the Old and New Testaments, nothing poetical shall be sung in the church, as the holy canons prescribe. 13. No layman may enter the sanctuary of the church, but only clerics for the reception of the communion. 14. Clerics who eat no flesh, must partake of vegetables cooked in flesh, in order to remove the suspicion of Priscillianism, under penalty of excommunication and deposition. 15. No one must hold intercourse with excommunicated persons. 16. No commemoration of suicides is to be made at the sacrifice, nor shall their bodies be buried with psalmody. So also with regard to criminals executed. 17. So with catechumens who die before baptism. 18. Corpses must not be interred within churches, but, for the most part, outside the walls of the church. 19. A priest who ventures, after being forbidden, to consecrate the chrism, or to consecrate churches or altars, shall be deposed from his office (vol. 2, sec. 112, c. 20; and 406 below). 20. No layman is to be made priest until he has learnt the ecclesiastical discipline a whole year as lector or subdeacon, and has risen through all the orders up to the Sacerdotium . 21. That which has been presented by the faithful, or which has been offered for prayers for the departed, must be collected by a cleric, and distributed, once or twice a year, among all the clerics, since a great inequality and thence discord arises, when each one is allowed to retain for himself the offerings which fall in his week. 22. The more ancient canons read in this Council must be observed by all, under pain of deposition.

At the close, the metropolitan requested the bishops individually to publish these ordinances in their dioceses, and to excommunicate all clerics and monks infected with the Priscillianist heresy, under penalty of proper excommunication. For the carrying out of the 7th canon of the third Synod of Paris, Leontius, metropolitan of Bordeaux, assembled the bishops of his province, in the year 563, at Xaintes (Concilium Santonense , i.), in order to depose Emerius, the bishop of this city, because he had been intruded in an uncanonical manner. King Chlotar I. had ordered him to be consecrated without the assent of the metropolitan and in his absence. In his place the Synod raised Heraclius, a priest of Bordeaux, to be bishop of Xaintes, and sent him to Paris, to King Charibert, in order to obtain his assent. On his way thither he requested Euphronius, archbishop of Tours, to subscribe the synodal decree; but he refused. It was still worse in Paris; for King Charibert was furious with them for wanting to invalidate an ordinance of his father Chlotar. He caused Heraclius to be placed on a car full of thorns, sent him into exile, restored Emerius, and fined Archbishop Leontius a thousand pieces of gold, and the other members of the Synod in proportion. So it is related by Gregory of Tours, Hist . Franc . lib. 4, C. 26. Gregory of Tours (ibid . lib. 5, c. 21) also refers to the second Synod of Lyons, which took place A.D. 567. Occasion for it was given by two bishops, Salonius of Embrun and Sagittarius of Gap (Vapingum ), who had been guilty of several acts of violence, murders, adulteries, and other crimes. In particular, they had fallen upon Victor, bishop of Augusta Tricastinorum (St. Paul de trois Chateaux), as he was celebrating his birthday, with an armed band, ill-treated and robbed him, and killed his servants. When King Guntram of Orleans learnt this, he ordered the Synod of Lyons to be held. Those two bishops were here found guilty and deposed. They appealed to Rome, and Pope John III. ordered them to be restored, which, in fact, was carried out by the King. Immediately they became reconciled to Bishop Victor, who again entered into communion with them. For this reason he was put out of communion by the bishops who had been present at our Synod, because he had renewed intercourse with one whom they had excommunicated, and this on a charge preferred by himself. So far Gregory of Tours. The matter of the two bishops was handled anew at the second Synod of Chalons, A.D. 579. (See below, sec. 286.)

The second matter of business at our Synod of Lyons was the drawing up of six canons: 1. If bishops from one ecclesiastical province have a controversy, they must be content with the sentence of the metropolitan and the comprovincials. If the quarrel is between bishops of different provinces, their metropolitans shall meet and decide the matter. If a bishop is injured by a colleague; or by anyone else, he must be defended by all his brethren in common. 2. That which bishops or other clerics have left by testament to the Church, or to anyone, shall remain unalterably in force, even if it is not quite in accordance with the ordo of the secular laws. Whoever interferes with such a legacy is shut out from all communion with the faithful until he makes restitution. 3. Whoever makes, or endeavors to make, a slave of one who has long lived in peace without question as to his (free) position, is to be excommunicated until he makes restitution. 4. If anyone is excommunicated by a bishop, he shall be regarded as excommunicated by all other bishops, until he who excommunicated him thinks him worthy of being received back. 5. That which former bishops have granted to any clerics, either from Church property in usufruct, or from their own property, to become theirs, future bishops must not venture to withdraw. If, however, these clerics have done wrong, the punishments shall be inflicted according to the quality of the person, and in accordance with the canons, on their persons, and not on their possessions. 6. In the first week of the ninth month, before the first Sunday in the month, all churches shall hold processions for intercession, in the same way as they are held, according to the ordinance of the Fathers, before the festival of the Ascension.

The minutes are subscribed by the two metropolitans, Philip of Vienne and Nicetius of Lyons, and also by six bishops and six representatives of bishops from the provinces of Vienne, Lyons, Trier (Treves), and Arles. Almost contemporaneous with the Synod just named was the second at Tours, where, on November 17, 567, in the Basilica of St. Martin, nine bishops, among them Euphronius, archbishop of Tours (President); Praetextatus, archbishop of Rouen, and St. Germanus of Paris, met, with the consent of King Charibert, for the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline. They summed up their ordinances in twenty-seven canons:— 1. Two provincial Synods shall be held annually, or if this should prove impossible, as in the past, then every year one at least. Only sickness, and nothing besides, not even a royal command, excuses nonappearance.

If a bishop does not appear, he must remain in a state of exclusion from the communion of his colleagues until the next great Synod, and no bishop of any other province may have communion with him. 2. If bishops have quarrels among themselves, they must select priests (presbyteros ) as umpires and mediators. If any one does not obey the sentence of those judges and mediators chosen by both sides, he shall be punished by the Synod. 3. “Ut corpus Domini in altari non in imaginario ordine sed sub crucis titulo componatur.” Some translate: “The body of the Lord, i .e . the particles of the broken consecrated bread, shall be laid upon the altar, not in an arbitrary order, according to the particular fancy of the priest, but in the form of the cross.” Others translate: “The body of the Lord shall not be placed on the altar in the series of the pictures, but shall be preserved under the cross.” That the former explanation is preferable has been shown by Binterim, Denkwurdigkeiten , Bd. 2, Thl. 2, S. f., note,* and Drs. Schwarz and Laib in the Studien uber d . christl . Altar , Stuttgard 1857, S. 30. The same is clear also from the Mozarabic Liturgy, which prescribed a cruciform arrangement of the sacred particles (cf. the author’s treatise on Cardinal Ximenes, 2 Aufl.

S. 160). It is further here to be remarked, as we have already seen (vol. 3, sec. 162), that in Gaul, as in Rome, the usage prevailed, during the Mass, to lay upon the altar a host previously consecrated, and to cast a portion of this host into the chalice. The particles of this host were ordered to be laid in the form of the cross. 4. As well at the vigils as at the Masses, the laity are not allowed to stand among the clergy near the altar on which the holy mysteries are solemnized; but the space between the railing and the altar is appointed only for the choirs of the singing clerks. At prayer, however (i .e . at private prayer, distinct from the divine service), and at communion, laymen, and also women, shall, in accordance with custom, enter the most holy place (sancta sanctorum ). 5. Every community shall support its poor, and the poor shall not wander about in strange cities. 6. No cleric or layman must grant epistolia . This belongs to the bishop alone. (Sec. 247. Orleans, 2, c. 13.) 7. No bishop may depose an abbot or archpresbyter without consultation with the other abbots. 8. If a bishop knows that anyone is excommunicated by another bishop, and maintains communion with him, he himself is to be deprived of communion until the next Synod. 9. In the province of Armoricum no one must consecrate either a Breton or a Roman to be bishop, without the assent of the metropolitan and his comprovincials, under penalty of exclusion from the communion of the bishops until the next Synod. 10. No bishop, priest, deacon, or subdeacon may have with him any other woman than his mother, sister, or daughter to manage his household affairs; nor yet a woman belonging to a monastery, nor a widow, nor a maid. 11. No bishop must be negligent in carrying through this ordinance.

The metropolitan must support his comprovincials in this, and they their metropolitan. 12. The bishop must regard his wife only as his sister. Wherever he resides he must be surrounded with clergy, and his abode and that of his wife must be separated from one another, that the clergy who serve him may come into no contact with the maidservants of the bishop’s wife. 13. A bishop who has no wife (episcopam ) must have no woman in his retinue, and the clergy who serve him have the right to drive strange women out of the residence of the bishop. 14. No priest or monk must sleep in the same bed with another, in order to avoid every evil suspicion. The monks, moreover, are not to live alone, or by twos in separate cells, but all in common in one schola ( = dormitorium , cf. Du Cange, s .v .), under the supervision of the abbot or provost. At the same time, two or three must keep awake and read in turns, while the others rest. 15. Whoever has entered a monastery must not leave it again and marry. If anyone does so, he is to be excommunicated, and, if necessary, with the help of the secular judge, must be separated from his wife. If the judge will not give this assistance, he is also excommunicated. Whoever defends a monk who has defiled himself by such a union is, like him, excommunicated until the monk returns to the monastery, and does the penance which the abbot lays upon him. 16. No woman may enter a man’s monastery. An abbot who suffers such a thing is excommunicated. 17. In regard to the fasts of monks the old ordinance shall continue.

From Easter to Pentecost (Quinquagesima = Pentekosth> ), with the exception of the Rogation Days, a prandium (breakfast or luncheon, before the coena , about midday) shall be prepared daily for the monks.

After Pentecost they shall fast for a week, and thenceforward, until the 1st of August, they shall fast three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, except the sick. In August there shall be prandium daily, because there are daily Missae Sanctorum (not de feria ). In September, October, and November, again, the fasts must be three times a week, as before; but in December, until Christmas, daily. From Christmas to Epiphany there shall be daily prandium , because every day is a festival.

Excepted are only the three days in the beginning of January, in which the fathers, in order to oppose the heathen usages, ordered private litanies. On the 1st of January, the festival of the Circumcision, Mass shall be sung at eight o’clock. From the Epiphany until Lent there must be three fasts in the week. 18. In honor of St. Martin the following use of the Psalter shall be observed, both in his church and in others: On feast days (according to another reading, AEstivis diebus ), at matins, six antiphons with every two psalms shall be sung; in the whole of August are manicationes (i .e . early rising, cf. Du Cange, s .v .), because in this month there are festivals and Masses of saints; in September there are seven antiphons with every two psalms; in October, eight with every three psalms; in November, nine with every three psalms; in December, ten with every three psalms; and the same number in January and February until Easter, more or fewer, as may be possible. But at matins there must never be fewer than twelve psalms, as at Sext six, and at the Duodecima twelve, with Hallelujah. If anyone takes less than twelve psalms at matins, he shall fast until evening, and then partake only of bread and water. Only in the next day may he again take refreshment. 19. As very many archpriests in the country, and also deacons and subdeacons, rest under suspicion of continuing intercourse with their wives, the archpriest must always have a cleric with him, who accompanies him everywhere, and has his bed with him in the same cell. In this seven subdeacons or lectors or laymen can change with one another. The remaining priests, deacons, and subdeacons shall take care, in the country, that their female slaves shall always live where their wives do; they themselves shall dwell and pray in their cells alone.

If a priest has intercourse with his wife (presbytera ), a deacon with his deaconess, a subdeacon with his subdeaconess, he is excommunicated for a year, deposed from his clerical office (for ever), and placed among the laity, he may sing only among the lectors. A priest who lives with his wife must not be reverenced by the people, but disapproved of, because he is a teacher, not of continence, but of vice. 20. Virgins who have taken the veil, and widows who have assumed the vow, must not marry again under penalty of excommunication (renewal of older ordinances of the second Synod of Arles, c. 52; see sec. 164; and of the Synod of Carthage, A.D. 418, c. 18, formerly erroneously attributed to the Council of Mileve; see vol. 2, sec. 119).

The excuse does not avail that a virgin has altered her raiment (taken the veil) in order not to be defiled by an inferior; for it has been confirmed by Kings Childebert, Chlotar, and Charibert, that no one may compel a maiden to marriage against the will of her parents (sec. 284). If, then, a virgin fears violence, let her flee into the church until her relations can rescue her; and then she may marry. If, however, she changes her habit, she must abide by her purpose. In regard to widows, however, one may not say that they could marry again because they have not been dedicated. Their dedication is certainly forbidden; but their vow is still binding. (Vol. 3, sec. 162, c. 27.) 21. The old canons in regard to incestuous marriages shall remain in force. Several of them, belonging to the Synods of Orleans, Epaon, and Clermont (secs. 224, 231, 249) are adduced with passages from Scripture (Leviticus 18,4 sqq., etc.). 22. Some still hold fast the old error, that they should honor the 1st of January. Others, on the festival of the See of Peter, present meat offerings to the dead, and partake of meats which have been offered to demons. Others reverence certain rocks, or trees, or fountains, etc. The priests should root out these heathenish superstitions. 23. Besides the Ambrosian hymns which we have in the canon, others also may be sung which are worthy of it, if the authors are named. 24. The property of the Church must not take harm by the mutual wars of the Frankish Kings against one another. If anyone (in warlike inroads into another part of the Frankish kingdom) plunders or confiscates Church property, he shall be exhorted to restitution; and if he remains obstinate, he shall at last be punished by all the bishops in common, with the singing of the 108th psalm [109], not only with excommunication, but also with anathema until his death. (Excommunication and anathema were, in ancient times, employed for the most part as identical. Where the two expressions are distinguished, anathema signifies the excommunicatio major , whilst by excommunication we are to understand only exclusion from the holy communion (minor ). Later, however, after the appearance of the collection of decretals of Gregory IX. (thirteenth cent.), by anathema was understood the greater excommunication emphasized by execrations, etc. See Kober, Kirchenbann , S. 37 ff. Cf. below, on the third Synod of Braga, where we read of a solemn excommunication with the singing of Psalm 108 [109].) 25. Partial repetition of the first canon of the third Synod of Paris, in regard to Church property (sec. 284). 26. Judges or magnates who oppress the poor shall be excommunicated, unless they reform at the exhortation of the bishop. 27. It is not merely sacrilegious, but heretical, if a bishop takes money for the ordaining of clerics, as is explained in the book De dogmatibus ecclesiasticis (of Gennadius). Both the giver and the receiver of the money shall be excluded from the Church until the next Synod. The Jesuit Sirmond recovered, from several MSS., a letter addressed to the Christian laity, either during the second Synod of Tours, or soon after it (as the superscription says), by four bishops who were members of that Synod, particularly Archbishop Euphronius of Tours. In this letter they summon the faithful to penitence and amendment, that they may escape the divine judgment which lies before them. The betrothed should put off their marriage, partly that by prayer and chastity they may propitiate God, partly that, if they perish in the misery lying before them, they may be cut off with a pure soul. From all property the tithe must certainly be paid, even every tenth slave, and so for every son the third of a pound must be given to the bishops for the redemption of prisoners. Enmities must be laid aside, incestuous unions dissolved. Two other letters have reference to our Council, namely, a letter of the Queen, St. Radegundis (widow of Chlotar I.), in which she petitions the bishops for confirmation of the women’s convent established by her at Poitiers; and a second containing the answer. On the 1st of January 607 of the Spanish era, i .e . 569 of our chronology, Theodomir of Galicia in Spain, the pious King of the Suevi, convoked the bishops of his kingdom in a Synod in the city of Lugo (ad Lucum ), and, among other things, represented to them that his kingdom had too few bishoprics, and only one metropolitan see (Braga). The Synod was asked to assist in removing this evil. It did so, raised the city of Lugo to the rank of a second metropolis, designated other cities (not named) as episcopal sees, and circumscribed, with greater exactness, the Galician sees, now increased to the number of thirteen, so that no disputes might arise on that subject.

This short notice is all that can be discovered respecting the first Synod of Lugo. What the learned Garsias Loaisia further added in his Collectio Conciliorum Hispaniae (1593) is partly spurious, e.g. the information disputing the circumscribing of the Spanish bishoprics under the Emperor Constantine the Great, partly it belongs to much later times. So with the tables of the Spanish archbishops and bishoprics which he added. The editor of Espana Sagrada , Florez, in the fourth volume of this great work, has denied the existence of the Synod of Lugo, and his continuer, the Augustine Manuel Risco, in the fortieth volume of that work, defends the statement of his predecessor against the objections of the Dean of Lugo, in a comprehensive Disertacion sobre los documentos de la santa Iglesia de Lugo , que se dicen Concilios Lucenses celebrados en el Reynado de los Sueoos , p. 299 sqq.

More important is the third (properly second) Synod of Braga in Spain, to which Miso, King of the Suevi (son of Theodomir), summoned the bishops of the three ecclesiastical provinces (here named utrumque concilium ) of his kingdom of Galicia, A.D. 572. The two archbishops, Martin of Braga (formerly bishop of Dumium) and Nitigisius of Lugo, were at their head, and the former presided. On his proposal, first of all were read the capitula of the former Synod of Braga, at which he had been present as bishop of Dumium, and for their completion two other canons were drawn up. They all refer to Church discipline; and it is remarkable how Archbishop Martin, in the year 572, could say there is de unitate et rectitudine fidei in hac provincia nihil dubium , whilst only nine years before the previous Synod of Braga held it necessary to oppose the Priscillianists so vehemently (see above in this section). Are we to think that this heresy had in the meantime been so weakened as to be extinguished? The 10th canon of our Synod makes reference to this.

The ten canons ordain:— 1. Bishops must visit their dioceses and see that the clergy rightly discharge their functions, particularly that the catechumens are exorcised twenty days before baptism, and are instructed in the creed.

The bishops should exhort the laity to keep far away from all worship of idols and from vices. 2. On these visitation tours the bishops must demand of each church no more than two solidi (in honorem cathedrae ), and from the parochial clergy they shall require no menial services. 3. Ordinations must be imparted without remuneration. 4. Henceforth nothing shall be paid for the small portion of balsam (chrism) sent to the churches by the bishop for use in baptism. 5. If a bishop is petitioned to consecrate a church he must demand nothing for this, but he may receive a voluntary gift. He is not, however, to consecrate a church unless he has previously received a deed as to its adequate endowment. 6. It has already happened that persons have built a church from selfish motives, and then appropriated one-half of the offerings there presented. A church of that kind no bishop must consecrate. 7. As many put off the baptism of their children because they are unable to pay the baptismal fees, these are for the future abolished, and the clergy must demand nothing for baptism, but may receive a voluntary offering. 8. If anyone accuses a cleric of fornication, he must have two or three witnesses (according to 1 Timothy 5:19), otherwise the accuser is to be excommunicated. 9. The metropolitan shall declare the date of the next Easter festival to the bishops, and at Christmas, after the Gospel, it shall be proclaimed by every clergyman to the people. At the beginning of Lent, Litaniae shall be held for three days. 10. It is a relic of the Priscillianist heresy that some priests hold and consecrate Masses for the dead after having previously partaken of wine. If anyone henceforth ventures thus to consecrate after he has partaken of anything, he shall be deposed by the bishop. Some further canons, supposed to be of Braga, which Burchard cites from Worms and Gratian, are given by Aguirre and Mansi (ll .cc .).

Quite incredible is that which is related by the Spanish chronicler under Philip II., Hieronymus Moralis, and after him by Baronius, ad ann . 572, n. 10, respecting a second Synod of Lugo, A.D. 572. Even Florez and his continuator Manuel Risco have mentioned this in the Espana Sagrada (t. 4, n. 40, p. 252). It is quite correct that the often-named Archbishop Martin of Braga sent a collection and translation which he had made of eighty-four older Greek canons (Martin came from Pannonia) to Archbishop Nitigisius of Lugo, and universo concilio Lucensis ecclesiae . But by concilium is here, as above, to be understood nothing else than an ecclesiastical province.

In France the fourth Synod of Paris was now celebrated. Gregory of Tours refers to it (Hist Franc . lib. 4, c. 48; earlier, 42) when he says: In order to put an end to a disagreement between Kings Guntrum and Sigebert, Guntrum convoked the bishops of his kingdom at a Synod in Paris.

As is well known, Guntrum and Sigebert were brothers, the latter King of Austrasia, the former of Burgundy; both sons of Chlotar I. Besides these, their brother Chilperich possessed the kingdom of Soissons; but the eldest brother Charibert had died A.D. 570, and they had divided his kingdom among them. There was hardly any cessation of war between the brothers, and although Guntrum and Sigebert partly united with one another against Chilperich, yet they were frequently in a state of hostility towards each other; so that it is unnecessary, with Valesius and Le Cointe, to alter the text of Gregory, as if he said: “In order to stop a quarrel between Chilperich and Sigebert , Guntrum convoked the Synod.”

The subject of the dispute between Guntram and Sitebert was the appointment of a bishop at Chateaudun (Castello-Dunum). This castle belonged to the diocese of Chartres, but to the kingdom of Sigebert, whilst Chartres was under Guntrum. With Sigebert’s assent, Archbishop AEgidius of Reims consecrated the priest Promotus as bishop of Chateaudun, and thus raised this city to be a bishopric and separated it from the diocese of Chartres, without, however, any assent from Pappolus, bishop of Chartres. The latter made complaint at the fourth Synod of Paris, which was held on the 11th of September 573, in the Basilica of St. Peter (afterwards St. Genevieve). It was attended by thirty-two bishops and one priest as the representative of his bishop, and numbered among its members six metropolitans, Philip of Vienne, Sapaudus of Arles, Priscus of Lyons, Constitutus of Sens, Laban of Eause, and Felix of Bourges. Naturally St.

Germanus of Paris was also present. They all subscribed the synodal letter to Archbishop AEgidius of Reims, in which his conduct was severely blamed, and the deposition of Promotus pronounced. In a second letter they exhorted King Sigebert no longer to protect that injustice. In the latter letter, they say, among other things, that the Synod had been summoned non absque conniventia of Sigebert. But these seem to be only words of courtesy. Had Sigebert consented to examine the matter synodaliter , many bishops would have come out of his kingdom also to Paris, whilst those who were present belonged almost entirely to the dominion of Guntrum.

From another expression of our Synod at the beginning of its letter to Archbishop AEgidius of Reims it seems to come out, that that controversy was not the only subject of its transactions, for it says: “Dum pro causis publicis, privatorumque querelis Parisiis moraremur ; but we know nothing further on the subject.

We further learn from Gregory of Tours (Hist . Franc , 7, 17), that Promotus was deposed after the death of Sigebert his king (575), and that his endeavors for restitution remained without effect.

SEC. 286. THE SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 575 AND 589.

To the year 575 belongs an Irish Concilium mixtum (a kind of Parliament and Synod united), which was celebrated under King Aedh or Aidus at Drum-ceitt (dorgum ceti = whale’s back) on the sea (now Drumkeath, in County Londonderry). St. Columba, the great national saint of Ireland and apostle of Scotland, was also present; and it was his eloquence that succeeded, in spite of the King’s will opposing, in securing the continuance of the bards, who had now for long been Christians; and now celebrated in song, as other Irish heroes, so also St. Columba, and this with special partiality. Moreover, the Irish monarch disclaimed, at this Synod, all supremacy over Albingens, King of the Dalriads, the Irish settlers in Scotland. St. Columba appears also to have brought this about. In the same year, 575, was Sigebert, already mentioned as Frankish King of Austrasia, assassinated, whilst he was making war on his brother Chilperich, King of Soissons and Paris. His widow, Brunehilde, was taken at Paris, and exiled to Rouen. During her imprisonment, Merovaeus, Chilperich’s son by his first marriage, had conceived an affection for her, and now married her at Rouen, without his father’s knowledge. In order to escape from the anger of Chilperich, they were both forced speedily to separate, and Brunehilde betook herself to Metz, to her young son, Childebert II., King of Austrasia. Between Chilperich and Merovaeus, however, there arose so violent an enmity, that the son rebelled against the father, who excluded him from the succession, chiefly at the instigation of his wife Fredegunde, who wanted to cast out her stepson and obtain the whole inheritance for her children. Under her influence; Chilperich, when the fortune of war became more favorable to him, persecuted all the friends of Merovaeus, and, among them, in particular, Praetextatus, archbishop of Rouen. He had him imprisoned, and sent him for condemnation before the fifth Synod of Paris, A.D. 577. As no Acts of this Synod are still extant, we know it only from Gregory of Tours (Hist . Franc . lib. 5, c. 19). There were forty-five bishops, among them Gregory himself, assembled at Paris in the Basilica of St. Peter (later St. Genevieve). King Chilperich appeared in his own person, and complained that Archbishop Praetextatus had, in opposition to the canons, married Prince Merovaeus to his aunt Brunehilde, had excited him to rebellion, had won the people over to him by presents, and had plotted the overthrow and death of the King, in order to raise up Merovaeus in his place. False witnesses confirmed the accusation. After the King had gone out, Gregory of Tours, in a fine address, endeavored to restore courage to the intimidated bishops, so as to secure an impartial consideration of the subject, but two colleagues denounced him (as it seems, Bertram of Bordeaux and Ragnemod of Paris). He was forced to appear before the King; but would not be won over either by threats or by flatteries; nor would he be won by the presents of Fredegunde.

Next day, at the second session, the King appeared again, and accused Archbishop Praetextatus of theft. He said he had made away with gold and valuables worth 5000 solidi. Praetextatus was able to show that these things were the property of Brunehilde, left by her in Rouen, and that the King himself well knew of this deposit. Chilperich saw that his proofs did not suffice, and that another way must be chosen. Some courtiers now had recourse to Praetextatus, and represented to him, under the appearance of goodwill, that he would most easily again obtain the favor of the King, if he would comport himself humbly before him and confess his faults. If he were to do this, the King would immediately forgive him. The archbishop consented to this, cast himself, at the third session, at the feet of Chilperich, and confessed that he had been in fault, and had plotted against the life of the King, in order to put the prince in his place. But the promised pardon did not follow. On the contrary, the King cast himself on his knees before the bishops, and demanded condemnation. Raised up again by the weeping bishops, he betook himself immediately to his residence, and then sent to the Synod a collection of canons, to which a new section was appended, containing the so-called apostolic canons. The 25th (24th) of these declares that a bishop, if he is guilty of fornication, or perjury, or theft, shall be deposed, but not deprived of communion (see App., can. in vol. 1). In the copy which the King sent, there was added “or murder”; and Chilperich now demanded not merely deposition, but solemn excommunication of the archbishop, with the singing of Psalm 108, and its forms of cursing. As the bishops, by the advice of Gregory of Tours, did not consent to this transgression of the canons, the King had Praetextatus arrested, on account of an attempted flight, severely beaten, and then deported to an island near Coutances in Normandy. Melanius or Melantius received the see of Rouen; but after the death of the King (584) the citizens of Rouen brought Praetextatus back with great rejoicings. He betook himself immediately to Paris, to King Guntrum, the guardian of the young Chlotar II. (son of Chilperich), and demanded a new inquiry. The Queen-widow, Fredegunde, maintained that he had been deposed by fortyfive bishops; but, as Bishop Ragnemod of Paris declared that only penance had been imposed upon him, and not complete deposition, he was received into favor by the King, and restored to his bishopric. We cannot ascertain with certainty the time at which the Concilium Brennacense was held. Gregory of Tours, here our only authority, gives no very exact information on the subject, and the suppositions range between 577 and 581. In earlier times it was assumed that Braine, near Soissons, was the place at which this Synod was held; but Abbe Lebeuf has shown clearly that we must think of the royal domain of Berni (Bergni, Bargni between Paris and Soissons (fourteen leagues from Paris, and seven from Soissons). On this occasion Gregory of Tours himself is on his trial.

Leudastes, who had raised himself from the lowest rank, through every kind of grade, up to the dignity of a count or governor of Tours