Canons of a diocesan church council held at Auxerre (central Gaul) forbid people from celebrating the feasts of the saints, including that of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050), in ways not authorised by the church, and also forbid the use of the Sortes sanctorum. Written in Latin at Auxerre during the episcopate of Aunacharius (561-605).
E05897
Canonical and legal texts
Council of Auxerre, canons 3-6
3. Non licet conpensus in domibus propriis nec peruigilius in festiuitates sanctorum facere nec inter sentius aut ad arbores sacriuos uel ad fontes uota dissoluere, nisi, quicumque uotum habuerit, in ecclesia uigilet et matricole ipsum uotum aut pauperibus reddat nec sculptilia aut pede aut hominem ligneo fieri penitus praesumat.
4. Non licet ad sortiligos uel auguria respicere nec ad caragius nec ad sortes, quas sanctorum uocant, uel quas de lignum aut de pane faciunt, aspicere, nisi, quaecumque homo facere uult, omnia in nomine Domini faciat.
5. Omnino inter supra dictis conditionibus peruigilius, quos in honore domini Martini obseruant, omnimodis prohibite.
6. Vt ad media quadragensima presbyteri crisma petant et, si quis infirmitate detentus uenire non potuerit, ad archidiacono suum archisubdiaconum transmittat, sed cum crismario et lenteo, sicut reliquiae sanctorum deportari solent.
'3. It is not permitted to make offerings or to hold vigils on the feast days of the saints in private houses, nor to make offerings among thickets or at sacred trees or at springs, but rather whoever wishes to make an offering, let them perform a vigil in church and let them deliver their offering to the poor on the register (matricula); nor should anyone at all presume to make sculpted images of a foot or a man out of wood.
4. It is not permitted to consult soothsayers or auguries, nor diviners, nor the so-called Sortes sanctorum, or lots made of wood or bread; but whatever a person wants to do, let them do everything in the name of the Lord.
5. Among the above-mentioned requirements, totally prohibit in every way the vigils they observe in honour of Lord Martin.
6. That in the middle of Lent presbyters should come for chrism, and if any, detained by infirmity, cannot come, he should send his archsubdeacon to the archdeacon, but with a vessel for chrism and a cloth, just as they are accustomed to carry relics of the saints.'
Text: De Clercq 1963, 265-6.
Translation: David Lambert.
Saint’s feast
Rejection, Condemnation, SceptisismCondemnation/rejection of a specific cultic activity
Condemnation of other activity associated with cult
Non Liturgical ActivityVigils
Appropriation of older cult sites
Bequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Source
This was a local council, convened by Bishop Aunacharius of Auxerre and attended by clerics and abbots from his diocese, not a provincial or national council attended by bishops. It is the only diocesan council from the period 511-695 whose acts survive (De Clercq 1963, 264).There is no direct evidence as to the date of the council beyond the fact that it took place when Aunacharius was bishop (561-605). A conjectural argument was put forward by Atsma 1983, 7-8, based on the possible relation of the acts of the council to other surviving texts, to date it to the period 585-592 (see discussion in E05911).
Discussion
The first three canons quoted here (3-5) condemn popular religious practices which the clerics and monks taking part in the council regarded as either tainted by paganism or providing opportunities for bad behaviour in general. Canon 3 forbids the practice of leaving offerings at rural sites linked to pagan religious practices, instructing people instead to hold vigils in church and to make an offering to the paupers on the church's official register (matricula); the ban on sculpted images relates to practices such as making an offering of a model of the part of the body that people wanted to be healed.The prohibition on holding vigils for saints' feast days in private houses, and on the vigils for Martin of Tours mentioned in canon 5, probably has a more general disciplinary aim of preventing the commemoration of the saints being used as an occasion for partying (the relevant feast of Martin is likely to be the feast of his translation on 4 July). Canon 4 forbids various forms of divination, including the use of the Sortes sanctorum (Lots of the Saints), a divinatory text, originally composed in Greek but circulating in Latin since at least the 5th century, and which was regularly condemned by Gallic church councils beginning with the Council of Vannes in 461/491 (E08513). The text provided numbered responses, which people selected by rolling dice, in order to foretell the future (see Luijendijk and Klingshirn 2019, 42-44, and for more detail Klingshirn 2002). The Sortes sanctorum text does not contain any reference to saints except in its title (note that sortes sanctorum can also be used as a more generic term for an oracle text, as in E01365).
The reference to saints in canon 6 is an incidental one, instructing clerics to handle chrism (consecrated oil) with the same respect as they would the relics of the saints.
Bibliography
Editions:De Clercq, C., Concilia Galliae, a. 511-a. 695 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 148A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1963), 265-272.
Gaudemet, J, and Basdevant, B., Les canons des conciles mérovingiennes (VIe-VIIe siècles) (Sources Chrétiennes 354; Paris, 1989), 488-505. De Clercq's text with annotated French translation.
Further reading:
Atsma, H., "Klöster und Mönchtum im Bistum Auxerre bis zum Ende des 6. Jahrhunderts," Francia, 11 (1983), 1-96.
Klingshirn, W., "Defining the Sortes Sanctorum: Gibbon, Du Cange, and Early Christian Lot Divination," Journal of Early Christian Studies 10:1 (2002), 77-130.
Luijendijk, A., and Klingshirn, W., "The Literature of Lot Divination," in: A. Luijendijk, W. Klingshirn, and L. Jenott (eds.), "My Lots are in Thy Hands": Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 19-59.
David Lambert
09/11/2023
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain | S00518 | Saints, unnamed | Certain |
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