Lugdunense / Lyon
Interprovincial Council in Lyon; 567/570
The Council of Lyon was attended by two metropolitan bishops, Philippus of Vienne and Nicetius of Lyon, along with six prelates and six clerical representatives. The majority of the attendees came from dioceses in the provinces of Lyon and Vienne, and all resided within the Frankish kingdom of King Guntram of Burgundy (r. 561-592). The precise year of the council’s assembly is uncertain, as the earliest transcription of the acts provides conflicting regnal and indiction dates. The council usually is assumed to be identical with one mentioned by Gregory of Tours in his Decem libri historiarum (5.20). According to Gregory, a council assembled in Lyon on Guntram’s orders to adjudicate charges that bishops Salonius of Embrun and Sagittarius of Gap, former disciples of Nicetius, had sent armed men to attack Bishop Victor of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux on his birthday. Although found guilty, the two deposed clerics subsequently appealed successfully to Pope John III. The acts themselves make no mention of the case.
The acts proper contain only six canons. These canons deal with a variety of concerns including the adjudication of disputes between bishops (c. 1), the sacrosanctity of legacies made to churches by clerics (c. 2), a prohibition of the enslavement of freemen (c. 3), the universality of sentences of excommunication (c. 4), the inalienability of gifts or grants of property made by bishops to clerics (c. 5), and the performance of litanies during the first week of November. Four of these six canons (cc. 2, 3, 5, and 6) were included in the systematic Merovingian-era canonical collection known as the Vetus Gallica. The full acts, however, survive only in the form of a sixteenth-century transcription by Laurentius Surius.
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QQ: Gregory of Tours, Decem libri historiarum 5.20, (ed. Krusch/Levison) 227-229; Maassen, Concilia aevi Merovingici, 139-141; de Clercq, Concilia Galliae, 200-203; Basdevant/Gaudemet (eds.), Les canons des conciles mérovingiens vol. 2, 400-409; Scholz, Ausgewählte Synoden Galliens und des merowingischen Frankenreichs, 328-337.
Lit.: Hefele/Leclerq III/1, 182-184; Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen, vol. 1, 211; Pontal, Synoden im Merowingerreich, 137-140; Halfond, The Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768, 229-230.
Gregory Halfond
Juli 2025
Empfohlene Zitierweise:
Halfond, Gregory, "Lugdunense / Lyon: Interprovincial Council in Lyon; 567/570", in: Lexikon der Konzilien [Online-Version], Juli 2025; URL: http://www.konziliengeschichte.org/site/de/publikationen/lexikon/database/515.html
