AUTUN, COUNCILS OF

A number of Church councils held at the diocesan seat of autun, France, near Lyons and cluny.

In 589 a council under St. Syagrius, Bishop of Autun, restored order in the monastery of Sainte-Radegonde at Poitiers by excommunicating the two nuns who were in rebellion against their abbess.

A council, c. 670, under Bp. leodegar of Autun, promulgated a number of disciplinary canons including one requiring priests to know the Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds and one demanding monastic stability and the strict observance of the benedictine Rule. Sacramental communion by all Christians was required at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Priests were to be punished for celebrating Mass unworthily.

In 1065 the archbishops of Lyons and Besanmnçon and the bishops of Chalon-sur-Sâone, Mâcon, and Autun met to consider the misrule of Duke Robert I of Burgundy whom Abbot hugh of cluny is said to have then brought to repentance.

In 1077 a council promoting Pope gregory vii's reforms was held by the papal legate hugh of die. It had to restore order after the violence of the late Duke Robert. It promulgated the law forbidding lay investiture, a subject raised when the council regularized the position of gerard, Bishop of Cambrai. The council found Abp. manasses of Reims guilty of simony and suspended him. Manasses then became an open supporter of Emperor henry iv and the antipope guibert of Ravenna.

On Oct. 15, 1094, another council under Hugh of Die renewed the excommunications of Henry IV and Guibert. Eudes I of Burgundy returned some Church property. In 1100 famine forced the council scheduled for Autun to be held instead at valence.

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) 3:307–308; 4:1233–34; 5:387–388. v. terret, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart (Paris 1912–) 5:922–925.

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