Councils of Sens

Councils of Sens

A number of councils were held at Sens. The first, about 600 or 601, in conformity with the instructions of St. Gregory the Great, especially advised warfare against simony. St. Columbanus refused to attend it because the question of the date of Easter, which was to be dealt with, was dividing Franks and Bretons. A series of councils, most of them concerned with the privileges of the Abbey of St. Pierre-le-Vif, were held in 657, 669 or 670, 846, 850, 852, 853, 862, 980, 986, 996, 1048, 1071, and 1080. The council of 1140, according to the terms of the letter issued by Archbishop Henri Sanglier, seems to have had no object but to impart solemnity to the exposition of the relics with which he enriched the cathedral; but the chief work of this council, which included representatives from the Provinces of Sens and Reims, and at which St. Bernard assisted, was the condemnation of Abelard's doctrine. The latter having declared that he appealed from the council to Rome, the bishops of both provinces, in two letters to Innocent II, insisted that the condemnation be confirmed. Dr. Martin Deutsch has placed this council in 1141, but the Abbé Vacandard has proved by the letter from Peter the Venerable to Héloïse, by the "Continuatio Praemonstratensis", the "Continuatio Valcellensis", and the list of the priors of Clairvaux, that the date 1140, given by Baronius, is correct. The council of 1198 was concerned with the Manichaean sect of Poplicani spread throughout Nivernais, to which the dean of Nevers and the Abbot of St-Martin de Nevers were said to have belonged. After the council Innocent III charged his legate, Peter of Capua, and Eudes de Sully, Bishop of Paris, with an investigation. Councils were also held in 1216, 1224 (for the condemnation of a book by Scotus Eriugena), 1239, 1252, 1253, 1269, 1280, 1315, 1320, 1460, 1485; most of them for disciplinary measures

GOUYER, Quelques mots sur la date et l'objet du premier concile de Sens in Bulletin de la societe archeologique de Sens (1877); DEUTSCH, Die Synode von Sens 1141 u. die Verurteilung Aballards, eine kirchengesch. Untersuchung (Berlin, 1880); VACANDARD, La date du concile de Sens 1140 in Revue des questions historiques, L (Paris, 1891), 235-45.

GEORGES GOYAU