Aurelianense IV / Orléans IV
Interprovincial Council in Orléans; 541
The Fourth Council of Orléans, which assembled in May of the year 541, was a large interprovincial council attended by forty-two bishops (including the metropolitan bishops of Bordeaux, Eauze, Rouen, and Tours), one abbot, and eleven presbyters, collectively representing nine ecclesiastical provinces. While bishops from Provence were in attendance for the first time at a Frankish synod, the metropolitan bishop (and papal vicar) Caesarius of Arles himself was absent. The first subscribing metropolitan prelate, Leontius of Bordeaux, appears to have presided over the meeting. Although the council’s acts make no explicit mention of a royal convocation, it usually is assumed that the reigning Merovingian monarchs, Childebert I, Theudebert I, and Chlothar I, at least gave tacit approval for the council’s assembly (although comparatively fewer bishops from Chlothar’s kingdom were in attendance).
The thirty-eight canons issued by the council address a wide variety of issues including liturgical practices. The first canon, for example, requires that Easter be observed according to the paschal tables of Victorius of Aquitaine (c. 1). In another notable rule (c. 6) the conciliar participants required that diocesan bishops supply parish clerics with canonical statutes so that both they and the laity might not claim ignorance of them. Several other canons closely follow, or elaborate upon, recent conciliar legislation. The council’s rule on incest, for instance (c. 27), explicitly cites preceding prescriptions by the Councils of Epaone (517) and Orléans (538). The acts also expound upon the requirement by Orléans (538) that Jewish slaveowners be compensated for the loss of Christian slaves who have fled from bondage (c. 30).
Although the council’s canons were preserved in half-a-dozen Gallic chronological collections, they appeared only infrequently in systematic collections. None of the canons were incorporated into the Merovingian-era Vetus Gallica, although subsequently Burchard of Worms and Ivo of Chartres drew selectively from the council’s acts.
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QQ: Maassen, Concilia aevi Merovingici, 86-99; de Clercq, Concilia Galliae, 132-146; Basdevant/Gaudemet, Les canons des conciles mérovingiens, 264-295; Scholz, Ausgewählte Synoden Galliens und des merowingischen Frankenreichs, 212-237.
Lit: Hefele/Leclerq II/2, 1164-74; Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen, 209; Pontal, Synoden im Merowingerreich, 85-93; Halfond, The Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768, 226.
Gregory Halfond
Juni 2025
Empfohlene Zitierweise:
Halfond, Gregory, "Aurelianense IV / Orléans IV: Interprovincial Council in Orléans; 541", in: Lexikon der Konzilien [Online-Version], Juni 2025; URL: http://www.konziliengeschichte.org/site/de/publikationen/lexikon/database/678.html
