Lugdunense / Lyon
Interprovincial Council in Lyon; ca. 518-523
The Council of Lyon assembled in the Burgundian Kingdom sometime following the episcopal ordination of Iulianus of Vienne (i.e. after February 518) and prior to Ostrogothic territorial expansion in Southeastern Gaul ca. 523. Along with Iulianus, the metropolitan bishop Viventiolus of Lyon was in attendance, along with nine of their suffragans. The acts give as the reason for the council’s assembly the bishops’ desire to address again (iterato) the case of a Burgundian official, Stephanus, accused of incest. The Vita Apollinaris episcopi Valentinensis, whose framing of events does not entirely agree with the conciliar acts themselves, clarifies that the widowed royal treasurer Stephanus had married his sister-in-law Palladia in violation of the thirtieth canon of the Council of Epaone (517). The earlier occasion on which the case of Stephanus and Palladia was discussed cannot be identified securely, however, although both the Council of Epaone itself and a prior Council of Lyon ca. 516 have been suggested.
The acta consist of four canons, although early editors divided what routinely is now edited in modern editions as canon one into three separate canons (for a total of six). Canon one directly addresses the incest case. It reaffirms the earlier condemnation of Stephanus and Palladia, and threatens that if King Sigismund himself should challenge the bishops on this verdict they would retire temporarily to monasteries until the king concedes. Following the fourth canon and the episcopal subscriptiones there is an addendum to the acts that in response to a royal request permits the penitent (and presumably separated) couple to pray in church up through the reading of the Gospels. The addendum is signed by all but two of the conciliar attendees, Viventiolus and Florentius of Orange or Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. It is possible, but by no means demonstrable, that these two prelates objected to the latter concession. The acts also address episcopal jurisdiction (c. 2) and episcopal succession (c. 3), and include a warning against transgressing against the canons (c. 4).
The canons were included in the Collectiones Coloniensis and Remensis, while canon four was included in the systematic Vetus Gallica.
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QQ: Maassen, Concilia aevi Merovingici, 31-34; de Clercq, Concilia Galliae, 38-41; Gaudemet/Basdevant-Gaudemet, Les canons des conciles mérovingiens, vol. 1, 127-135; Vita Apollinaris Episcopi Valentinensis ch. 2, in: Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici et antiquiorum aliquot, ed. B. Krusch, Hannover 1896 (= MGH SS rer. Merov. 3), 198.
Lit: Hefele/Leclerq II/2, 1042-1046; Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen, vol. 1, 205; Pontal, Synoden im Merowingerreich,46-48; Halfond, The Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768, 224; Mikat, Die Inzestgesetzgebung der merowingisch-fränkischen Konzilien, 106–115; I. Wood, Incest, Law and the Bible in Sixth-Century Gaul, in: Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998) 291-303; Ubl, Inzestverbot und Gesetzgebung, 118-137; A. Kinney, An Appeal against Editorial Condemnation: A Reevaluation of the Vita Apollinaris Valentinensis, in: Edition und Erforschung lateinischer patristischer Texte, ed. V. Zimmerl-Panagl/L.J. Dorfbauer/C. Weidmann, Berlin 2014, 157–177; I. Wood, Burgundians and Bishops, in: S. Panzram/P. Poveda Arias (eds.), Bishops under Threat: Contexts and Episcopal Strategies in the Late Antique and Early Medieval West, Berlin 2023, 167-182.
Gregory Halfond
November 2025
Empfohlene Zitierweise:
Halfond, Gregory, "Lugdunense / Lyon: Interprovincial Council in Lyon; ca. 518-523", in: Lexikon der Konzilien [Online-Version], November 2025; URL: http://www.konziliengeschichte.org/site/de/publikationen/lexikon/database/480.html
