Vannes, Council of (Concilium Veneticum)

Vannes, Council Of (Concilium Veneticum)

Vannes is a seaport town of France, capital of the department of Morbihan, on the south coast of Brittany, sixty-one miles north-west of Nantes. A council was held there in 465 by St. Perpetuus, the first archbishop of Tours, who presided over five other bishops. Paternus was in this council consecrated to the see of Vannes, and, sixteen canons were published (many of which are the same with those of Tours) A.D. 461. The following are peculiar to this council:

2. Excommunicates those who marry again after having divorced their first wives, unless it was on account of adultery.

7. Forbids monks to retire into solitary cells, except they be men of tried virtue, and upon condition that they keep within the precincts of the abbey and under the abbot's jurisdiction.

8. Forbids abbots to hold many monasteries or cells.

11. Prohibits priests, deacons, and subdeacons, who are forbidden to marry, from attending marriage festivals, feasts, and assemblies at which love songs, etc., are sung, and immodest conversations held.

12. Forbids all clerks to attend Jewish festivals.

13. Excommunicates for thirty days ecclesiastics guilty, of the sin of drunkenness, and enjoins even corporal punishment.

14. Excommunicates for seven days clerks who, living in the city, absent themselves from matins.

15. Orders that the same manner of celebrating divine. service shall be observed throughout the province of Lyons.

16. Excommunicates those of the clergy who meddle in divinations, and superstitiously pretend to foretell the future by chance readings of Holy Scripture. These regulations are addressed to Victorius, bishop of Maur, and Thalassimus of Angers, who were unable to attend the council. See Mansi, Concil. 4:1054.