Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T09:08:50.487Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Ecclesiastical Councils

from Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2019

Philip L. Reynolds
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
Get access

Summary

The history of conciliarism during the first millennium is also the story of episcopal corporatism. During this period, hundreds of episcopal councils assembled throughout the Latin West. Primarily regional meetings, these defy easy generalizations as regards their priorities and agendas and their influence on religious policy and practice. Despite their diversity, however, they constituted an institutional mechanism for bishops to craft rules whose authority was predicated chiefly on the consensus of the bishops as legislators. Collectively, bishops contributed to a growing body of ecclesiastical norms, which had yet to be fully delineated or codified. While promulgating policies for their immediate context, bishops consciously grounded their work in authoritative precedent, reaffirming both their shared corporate identity and authority and their role in the continuation of the apostolic tradition.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Sources

Bede, . Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. Ed. Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B.. Revised ed. Oxford, 1992. [English translation: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. Bertram Colgrave, ed. McClure, Judith and Collins, Roger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999).]Google Scholar
Capitularia regum Francorum. MGH LL, Sectio II, 1–2. Ed. Boretius, Alfred and Krause, Viktor (1883–97).Google Scholar
Concilia aevi Karolini 742–842. MGH Conc. (=MGH LL, Sectio III), 2: 1–2. Ed. Werminghoff, Albert (1906–08).Google Scholar
Concilia Africae: A.345–A.525. CCL 149. Ed. Munier, Charles (1974).Google Scholar
Concilia Galliae: A.314–A.506. CCL 148. Ed. Munier, Charles (1963).Google Scholar
Concilia Galliae: A.511–A.695. CCL 148A. Ed. de Clercq, Charles (1963).Google Scholar
Concilios visigóticos e hispano-romanos. Ed. Vives, José. Barcelona and Madrid: Instituto Enrique Flórez, 1963.Google Scholar
Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. 3. Ed. Haddan, Arthur West and Stubbs, William. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871.Google Scholar
Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church I (A.D. 871–1204). Ed. Whitelock, Dorothy, Brett, Martin, and Brooke, Christopher. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Cyprian of Carthage. Epistularium. Ed. Diercks, G. F.. CCL 3B-D (1994–99).Google Scholar
Cyprian of Carthage. Sententiae episcoporum numero LXXXVII de haereticis baptizandis. Ed. Diercks, G. F.. CCL 3E (2004).Google Scholar
Gregory I, Pope. Registrum Epistularum. CCL 140. Ed. Norberg, Dag (1972). [English translation: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R. C. Martyn, 3 vols., Mediaeval Sources in Translation (Toronto: PIMS, 2004).Google Scholar
Gregory of Tours. Decem Libri Historiarum. MGH SRM 1.1. Ed. by Krusch, Bruno and Levison, Wilhelm. Hanover: Hahn, 1937–51. English translation: History of the Franks. Trans. Lewis Thorpe. London: Penguin, 1974.Google Scholar
Isidore of Seville. Etymologiae. Ed. by Lindsay, W. M.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911. [English translation: The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. S. A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and O. Berghof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).Google Scholar
Die Konzilien der Karolingischen Teilreiche 843–859. MGH LL, Sectio III, tom. 3. Ed. Hartmann, Wilfried (1984).Google Scholar
Die Konzilien der Karolingischen Teilreiche 860–874. MGH Conc. (= MGH LL, Sectio III), tom. 4. Ed. Hartmann, Wilfried (1998).Google Scholar
Die Konzilien der Karolingischen Teilreiche 875–911. MGH Conc. (=MGH LL, Sectio III), tom. 5. Ed. Hartmann, W., Schröder, Isolde, and Schmitz, Gerhard (2014).Google Scholar
Die Konzilien Deutschlands und Reichsitaliens 916–1001. MGH Conc. (= MGH LL, Sectio III), tom. 6. Ed. Hehl, Ernst-Dieter, Fuhrmann, H., and Servatius, C. (1987–2007).Google Scholar
Die Konzilordines des Früh- und Hochmittelalters. Ed. Schneider, Herbert. Hanover: Hahn, 1996.Google Scholar
Passio Leudegarii Episcopi et Martyris Augustodunensis I. MGH SRM 5. Ed. Krusch, Bruno (1910) [English translation in Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, 640–720, trans. P. Fouracre and R. A. Gerberding (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996).]Google Scholar
Regino of Prüm. Das Sendhandbuch des Regino von Prüm. Ed. and trans. Wasserschleben, F. W. H. and Hartmann, Wilfried. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004.Google Scholar
Die Urkunden der Merowinger. Ed. Brühl, C., Kölzer, T., Hartmann, M., and Stieldorf, A.. Hanover: Hahn, 2001.Google Scholar
Victor of Vita. Historia persecutiones Africanae provinciae. MGH AA 3.1. Ed. Halm, Karl (1879).Google Scholar

Further Reading

Brundage, James A. Medieval Canon Law. New York: Routledge, 1995.Google Scholar
Cubitt, Catherine. Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c. 650–c. 850. London: Leicester University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Halfond, Gregory I. The Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511–768. Leiden: Brill, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, Hamilton. The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Serdica. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Louth, Andrew. “Conciliar Records and Canons.” In Young, F. et al. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 391–95.Google Scholar
MacMullen, Ramsay. Voting About God in Early Church Councils. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Mathisen, Ralph W. Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989.Google Scholar
McKitterick, Rosamond. The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789–895. London: Royal Historical Society, 1977.Google Scholar
Rapp, Claudia. Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Reuter, Timothy. “A Europe of Bishops. The Age of Wulfstan of York and Burchard of Worms.” In Körntgen, L. and Waßenhoven, D. (eds.), Patterns of Episcopal Power: Bishops in 10th and 11th Century Western Europe (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 1738.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Roger. “The Organization, Law and Liturgy of the Western Church, 700–900.” In McKitterick, R. (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 2, 587621. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Stocking, Rachel L. Bishops, Councils, and Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom, 589–633. History, Languages, and Cultures of the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Ullmann, Walter. “Public Welfare and Social Legislation in the Early Medieval Councils.” Studies in Church History 7 (1971): 139.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×