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4 - Ecclesiastical Councils

from Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2019

Philip L. Reynolds
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
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Summary

The history of conciliarism during the first millennium is also the story of episcopal corporatism. During this period, hundreds of episcopal councils assembled throughout the Latin West. Primarily regional meetings, these defy easy generalizations as regards their priorities and agendas and their influence on religious policy and practice. Despite their diversity, however, they constituted an institutional mechanism for bishops to craft rules whose authority was predicated chiefly on the consensus of the bishops as legislators. Collectively, bishops contributed to a growing body of ecclesiastical norms, which had yet to be fully delineated or codified. While promulgating policies for their immediate context, bishops consciously grounded their work in authoritative precedent, reaffirming both their shared corporate identity and authority and their role in the continuation of the apostolic tradition.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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Further Reading

Brundage, James A. Medieval Canon Law. New York: Routledge, 1995.Google Scholar
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Ullmann, Walter. “Public Welfare and Social Legislation in the Early Medieval Councils.” Studies in Church History 7 (1971): 139.Google Scholar

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