Council of Clermont (535)

For the later Council of Clermont, in 1095, see Council of Clermont.

At the Council of Clermont in 535, fifteen prelates of the kingdom of Austrasia assisted, under the presidency of Honoratus, Bishop of Bourges, at a synod in the city now called Clermont-Ferrand. Among those bishops attending was the bishop of Clermont, canonized as saint Gal.

They drew up seventeen canons, of which the first sixteen are contained in the Decretum Gratiani compiled in the twelfth century by Gratian; they have become part of the corpus of canon law of the Catholic Church, the Corpus Iuris Canonici.

The following is a summary:

• bishops are prohibited from submitting to the deliberations of councils any private or temporal affairs, before having dealt with matters regarding discipline;
• clerics are forbidden to appeal to seculars in their disputes with bishops;
• excommunication is pronounced against bishops who solicit the protection of princes in order to obtain the episcopacy, or who cause forged decrees of election to be signed.

The council also declared itself forcefully against the marriages of Christians with Jews, marriages between relatives, and the misconduct of the clergy.

See also

• Council of Clermont of 1095

References

• Catholic Encyclopedia: "St. Gal"
• Brian Brennan, 1985. "'Episcopae': Bishops' Wives Viewed in Sixth-Century Gaul" Church History 54.3 (September 1985), pp 311–323.