Opening
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. iii. 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 S. Martin, bishop of Dumium, came over to the Catholic Church.2 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. iii. 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
1 Montalembert, Mvines de I'Occident, vol. iv. ; and Greith (bishop of S. Gallen), Geschichte der altirisclien Kirclie, S. 189. The author gave a short survey of the life and work of S. Columba in the Tubingen Tlwolog. Quartal- schrift, 1867, S. 499 sqq. [An excellent monogram, Saint Columba, his Life and Work, by Rev. E. A. Cooke, M.A. Edinburgh 1893.]
* Gregory of Tours speaks at large of this conversion, De miraculis S. Martini, lib. i. c. 11.
382 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
with this matter, one at Toledo (of the bishops of the civil provinces of Tarragona, Carthagena, Lusitania, and Bsetica), and the other in the province of Galicia (in municipio Celeneiisi, vol. iii. 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 recognises only a single Person, so that HE 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,1 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 HE 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, Manichseus, 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 Manichseus 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
1 That is, that from each divine Person again three personal powers have proceeded.
SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 560 AND 575. 383
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 Manichseus and Priscillian taught, let him be anathema.
8. If anyone believes that, because the devil has pro- duced 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 Pris- cillian taught, etc.
11. If anyone condemns matrimony, and abhors pro- creation, 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 Manichseus 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 un- cleanness, so that he does not use even vegetables cooked with flesh, like Manichseus 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 Ccena Domini, does riot, 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
384 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
day, after terce, with their fast discontinued by a Mass for the dead, etc.
17. If anyone reads the Scriptures, as falsified by Pris- cillian 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 (Ecumenical and special Synods were read, and also a letter from Pope Vigilius to Profuturus, the former bishop of Braga, of date 538,1 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 Pris- cillianists.2
4. Mass must be celebrated everywhere in accordance with the formulary (Or do), which was sent in writing from Kome, and received by Profuturus, a former metropolitan of Braga.
1 Mansi, t. ix. p. 777 ; Hardouin, t. ii. p. 1429, under the wrong address, Ad Eutherium.
2 The Priscillianists required that the bishop, in greeting, should say Pax vobis, the priest, Dominus vobiscum. Our Synod declares this to be an innova- tion, and so far with right, when the Priscillianists prescribed a difference between the greeting of the bishop and that of the priest. But the use of the Pax vobis is in itself no innovation ; on the contrary, this was, in the early Church, the ordinary formula of greeting for bishops and priests, particularly in the East. The Dominus vobiscum seems to have first become universally pre- valent when heathens and heretics were also allowed, without hindrance, to be present at divine service. The Pax vobis was then reserved for the faithful. Of. Liift, Liturgik, Bd. ii. S. 76 and 77.
SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 560 AND 575. 385
5. So in regard to baptism,
6. Bishops shall sit according to the time of their ordina- tion ; 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 liiminaria 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.1
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 Pris- cillianism, 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.
1 8. 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 conse- crate the chrism, or to consecrate churches or altars, shall be deposed from his office (vol. ii. sec. 1 1 2, c. 20 ; and 406 below).
1 "Neque granos gentili ritu dimittant." Du Gauge (s.v. grani) thinks that grani does not mean hair generally, but the beard.
IV. 25
386 IIISTOUY OF THE COUNCILS.
20. No layman is to be made priest until he has learnt the ecclesiastical discipline a whole year as lector or sub- deacon, 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 dis- cord 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 in- dividually to publish these ordinances in their dioceses, and to excommunicate all clerics and monks infected with the Priscillianist heresy, under penalty of proper excommuni- cation.1
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 (Con- cilium 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 want- ing 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
1 Mansi, t. ix. p. 773 sqq. ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 247 sqq. ; Bruns, pt. ii. p. 29 sqq. ; Aguirre, Concilia Hispan. t. ii. p. 292 sqq. Best in the new collection of Spanish canons — " Coleccion de Canones de la iglesia espauola, por Don Fran- cisco Ant. Gonzalez, con notas e illustraciones por D. Juan Tejada y Ramiro," Madrid 1849, t. ii. p. 606 sqq. Cf. Remi Ceillier, I.e. p. 779 ; Mandernach, Gesch. des Priscillianismus, 1851, S. 72 sqq., and Ferreras, Gesch. von Bd. ii. S. 252 sqq.
SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 560 AND 575. 387
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. iv. c. 26.1
Gregory of Tours (ibid. lib. v. 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 (S. Paul de trois Chateaux), as he was cele- brating 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 in. 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
1 Printed in Sirmond, I.e. p. 319 ; Mansi, t. ix. p. 783 ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 353. Gregory of Tours relates in detail that Heraclius, at his entrance, greeted the King with the words : "Salve, rex gloriose, sedes enim apostolica eminentiae tuse salutem mittit uberrimam." The King answered: "Numquid Turonicam adiisti urbem, ut papse illius nobis salutem deferas ? " To this Heraclius : ' ' Pater Leontius tuus cum comprovincialibus episcopis salutem tibi mittit. " We see from this that at that time the metropolitan sees, as here Tours and Bordeaux, were called sedes apostolicss. Buinant and, after him, the Abbe" Migne have, in their editions of the works of Gregory, put Romanam instead of Turonicam, on the authority of a single codex ; but certainly without right. Even in the expres- sion piipisR illiiis urbis their lies an indication that the Pope nor \\>xi» is not meant.
388 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
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 unalter- ably 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 endeavours 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 Aries.1
Almost contemporaneous with the Synod just named was the second at Tours, where, on November 17, 567, in the Basilica of S. Martin, nine bishops, among them Euphronius,
1 Mansi, t. ix. p. 786 sqq. ; Hardouin, t. iii. p. 354 sqq. ; Sirmond, t. i. p. 325 sqq.; Bruns, pt. ii. p. 222 sqq.
SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 560 AND 575. 389
archbishop of Tours (President); Prfetextatus, archbishop of Rouen, and S. 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 non-appearance. 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, Denk- wiirdigkeiten, Bd. ii. Thl. ii. S. 166 f., note *, and Drs. Schwarz and Laib in the Studien uber d. christl. Altar, Stutt- gard 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. iii. 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 solemnised ; but the space between
390 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
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 him- self 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 Eoman 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 ; ror 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 compro- vincials 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, of. Du Cange, s.v.), under the supervision of the abbot or provost. At the
SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 560 AND 575. 391
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 excommuni- cated, 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 = Uez/Te/eoo-TT?), 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 Missce Sanctorum i (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 honour of S. Martin the following use of the Psalter shall be observed, both in his church and in others : On feast days (according to another reading, j?Estims 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
392 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
hns ; 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 Duo- decima 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 (presbyter a), 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 Aries, 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. ii 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 ; 1 for it has
1 The Council of Carthage (Mileve) had, in canon 18, supposed the case, that a virgin takes the veil because some powerful person would compel her to marriage. This passage is repeated in our canon, which thus proceeds : " Excludatur excnsationis inventio, quod propterea se veste mutaverit, ue eas inferiores personae maculareiit. "
SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 560 AND 575. 393
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 dedica- tion is certainly forbidden ; but their vow is still binding. (Vol. iii. 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 (sees. 224, 231, 249) are adduced with passages from Scripture (Lev. xviii. 4 sqq., etc.).
22. Some still hold fast the old error, that they should honour 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 rever- ence 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 excom- municatio major, whilst by excommunication we are to under- stand 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
394 HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
understood the greater excommunication emphasised by execrations, etc. See Kober, Kircheribann, 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.1
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.2
Two other letters have reference to our Council, namely, a letter of the Queen, S. Eadegundis (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.3
1 Mansi, t. ix. p. 790 sqq. ; Hardouiu, t. iii. p. 355 sqq. ; Sirmond, I.e. p. 329 sqq. ; Bruns, pt. i. p. 224 sqq. • Cf. Remi Ceillier, t. xvi. p. 784 sqq.
2 Mansi, I.e. p. 808 ; Hardouin, I.e. p. 367 ; Sirmond, I.e. p. 343.
3 Mansi, I.e. p. 810 ; Hardouin, I.e. p. 370 ; Sirmond, I.e. p. 345.
SYNODS BETWEEN THE YEARS 560 AND 575. 395
On the 1st of January 607 of the Spanish era, i.e. 569 of our chronology,1 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 Hispanice (1593) is partly spurious, e.g. the information disputing the circumscrib- ing 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.2 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 Eeynado de los Sueoos, p. 299 sqq.
More important is the third (properly second) Synod of