Aurelianense V / Orléans V
Interprovincial Council in Orléans; 549
The Fifth Council of Orléans (549) was a large interprovincial council convoked by King Childebert I, and attended by fifty bishops, six archdeacons, three deacons, ten presbyters, and two abbots, collectively representing over a dozen ecclesiastical provinces. Sacerdos of Lyons, who subscribed first to the acts, appears to have presided over the meeting. The council agreed to twenty-four canons, and concluded its business on October 28th. Along with its legislative agenda, the council also restored Bishop Marcus of Orléans to his see after having been deposed and exiled (on account of unknown charges).
The council issued a number of notable canons. The acts’ statement of condemnation against the heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius (c. 1) is read by most scholars as a rejection of the imperial position in the Three Chapters controversy. The council additionally confirmed in its fifteenth canon the foundation of a hospice (xenodochium) at Lyons by Childebert and his wife Ultragotha. Also, the Council of Paris (551/2), a few years later, explicitly cited the legislation of the council of 549 in its condemnation of Bishop Saffaracus of Paris, specifically canon twelve, which had allowed for the ordination of a new bishop in the place of one deposed for a capital crime. In addition to these and other canons, the council of 549 was notably attentive to the protection of ecclesiastical property, condemning those who attempted to alienate it as “murderers of the poor”.
The council’s canons were strongly represented in the Gallic chronological collections of the Merovingian period. Canon nineteen also was included in the systematic Vetus Gallica, while several canons were subsequently taken up by Regino of Prüm, Burchard of Worms, Ivo of Chartres, and Gratian in their respective collections (canon seventeen being the most frequently selected).
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QQ: Gregory of Tours, Liber vitae patrum 6.5, in: Gregorii Turonensis Opera. Miracula et opera minora, ed. B. Krusch, Hanover 1885 (= MGH SS rer. Merov. I/2); Maassen, Concilia aevi Merovingici, 99-112; de Clercq, Concilia Galliae, 147-161; Basdevant / Gaudemet (eds.), Les canons des conciles mérovingiens, 297-327; Scholz, Ausgewählte Synoden Galliens und des merowingischen Frankenreichs, 238-263.
Lit: Hefele/Leclerq III/1, 157-164; Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen, 209; Pontal, Synoden im Merowingerreich, 94-101; Halfond, The Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768, 227; T. Stüber, The Fifth Council of Orléans and the Reception of the ‘Three Chapters Controversy’ in Merovingian Gaul, in: The Merovingian Kingdoms and the Mediterranean World: Revisiting the Sources, ed. S. Esders,/Y. Hen/P. Lucas/T. Rotman, London 2019, 93-102; M. Eber, Similiter et nos anathematizamus. Dogma als Synodalkanon auf gallischen Konzilien des 6. Jahrhunderts, in: Der Bischöfliche Impetus. Individueller und kollektiver Gestaltungswille in Gesellschaft, Kultur und Wirtschaft vom 4. bis zum 9. Jahrhundert, ed. A. Bihrer/S. Scholz/G. Schwedler, Köln-Wien 2025, 123-143.
Gregory Halfond
Juni 2025
Empfohlene Zitierweise:
Halfond, Gregory, "Aurelianense V / Orléans V: Interprovincial Council in Orléans; 549", in: Lexikon der Konzilien [Online-Version], Juni 2025; URL: http://www.konziliengeschichte.org/site/de/publikationen/lexikon/database/679.html
