Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

councils and clergy 737
qualifications. If married, clergy must abstain from sexual intercourse, and
may not retain a female other than a close relative in their house. Clergy
may not be twice married, and their widows must stay single. Clergy may
not attend the circus or hunt. Liturgical occasions must be properly
observed, and these are imposed especially on bishops, along with their
pastoral, homiletic and charitable duties, the giving of absolution to the
penitent and the writing of recommendations. Jurisdictional questions
figure largely. Property might be held in one diocese by persons resident in
another, and if churches are built and staffed there, ecclesiastical allegiance
must be sorted out. This is especially tricky where the property is owned by
another bishop. The disposal of church property is frequently an issue, and
there are stringent canons about what happens on the death of a cleric. The
duty of metropolitans to call provincial synods annually, or more frequently,
is prescribed. Potential bishops must have their discipline and their
faith tested before election. They must not (like Caesarius of Arles) be
chosen by their predecessors. New ecclesial offices arise to deal with the
problems of organization: archpresbyters, archdeacons, and even archsubdeacons
appear. Relations with the kings sometimes figure, and the royal
prerogative in appointing bishops can sometimes be asserted (Orleans V,
549, can. 10) and sometimes repudiated (Paris III, 546/573, can. 8); the part
in elections of the people, the clergy, the bishops and the metropolitan are
repeatedly affirmed. Where the laity are concerned, marriage rules loom
large: the fear of incest is obsessive. 22 Marriage or other contact with heretics
and Jews is banned or restricted. Only rarely are doctrinal matters
tackled; the classic exception is Caesarius’ Council of Orange in 529, when
the Augustinian position was comprehensively asserted against the semi-
Pelagians. Such matters do not come to the fore, even when regimes are
changing from ‘Arian’ to Catholic overlords. 23 Much of this may be interpreted
inversely: where a practice is repeatedly banned, it is presumably
common. The influence of the civil power led to many worldly men being
appointed to the clericate, and the constant concern of councils with clergy
discipline, as well as with the doctrinal competence of bishops, reflects this
fact.
A remarkable absentee in the Merovingian canons is the pope. The only
reference appears to be the right to consult the apostolic see through the
metropolitan about the date of Easter. 24 This reflects political conditions,
and perhaps the absence of any primacy among the metropolitans further
22 Gaudemet and Basdevant (1989) 57.
23 The Council of Épaone in 517, presided over by Avitus of Vienne after Sigismund’s rise to power,
had only two references to heretics and their buildings. The same applies to the momentous Council
of Toledo III in 589, after Reccared’s conversion (see Orlandi in Orlandi and Ramos-Lisson (1981)
95–117, esp. 110–11).
24 Orleans iv, 541, can. 1 (not can. 2 as in Gaudemet and Basdevant (1989) 48 n. 4).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008