ATTIGNY, COUNCILS OF

A number of Church councils held at Attigny, near Vouziers, France, in the Diocese of Reims, where there were both an episcopal residence and an important residence of the Carolingian kings.

In 765 about 25 bishops, 17 abbots, and other clerics met there; all that is now known of their transactions is that they promised that when one of them died the others would offer as suffrages a certain number of Masses and Psalms.

In 785 or 786, charlemagne attended the council at which two conquered Saxon princes, widukind and Albuin, were baptized.

In 822, at an assembly of bishops and princes, Emperor Louis the Pious was reconciled with his three brothers, including drogo of metz, and did public penance for blinding his nephew Bernard, King of Italy. He promised to correct abuses and to restore ecclesiastical and civil order. He commended the Rule of St. chrodegang of metz for every chapter of canons. The bishops promised a program of reform, including the foundation and improvement of schools for future clerics.

At a council held in 834, Louis again promised to correct abuses and ordered his son Pepin to return certain Church properties.

There may have been a council at Attigny in 847, confirming decisions of the council of Paris of 846 or 847, which denied the claims of ebbo of reims and confirmed the nomination of hincmar as archbishop of Reims.

In 865 a council decreed that King lothair ii must leave his concubine and take back his wife. The papal legate promulgated two papal excommunications.

In 870, 30 bishops from ten provinces and six archbishops participated in a council that found Carloman guilty of conspiracy against his father, Emperor Charles II the Bald. hincmar, Bishop of Laon, had to promise obedience to Charles and to his metropolitan.

Bibliography: c. j. von hefele, Histoire des conciles d'après les documents originaux, tr. and continued by h. leclercq, 10 v. in 19 (Paris 1907–38) 3:951–952, 994; 4:34–36, 88–89, 363–364, 1306–07, 1344. a. prÉvost, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart (Paris 1912–) 5:168.

[a. condit]