Autun

AUTUN, ō´´tUn´: A town of France, department of Saône-et-Loire, 160 m. s.e. of Paris. It is the old Bibracte, the capital of the Ædui in Cæsar’s time, whose name was changed under the emperors to Augustodunum. It was one of the principal towns of Gallia Lugdunensis; its walls had a circumference of over two miles. The few inscriptions preserved from its early Christian period show that the Greek language was used in the Christian community there, side by side with the Latin, as late as the fourth century. The first bishop of whom we have certain knowledge was Reticius, who was present at the First Synod of Arles (316). In the seventh century Bishop Leodegar held a provincial synod there, whose decrees have only in part survived. The first canon contains one of the earliest distinct mentions of the Athanasian Creed; the fifteenth shows the progress already made in the Frankish kingdom by the Benedictine rule.

A. Hauck.

Bibliography: MGH, Legum, Sectio III, Concilia, vol. i, Concilia ævi Merovingici, i (1893), 220; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, iii, 113, Eng. transl., iv, 485.