Synods Of. Quedlinburg

Synods Of. Quedlinburg

Several ecclesiastical coulncils were held in this German city in mediaeval times. The first took place in 1085. The bishops who sided with pope Gregory VII assembled it immediately after Easter, and it was presided over by the papal legate Otto di Ostia. Among those who attended were archbishops Gebhard of Salzburg and Hartwick of Magdeburg; the bishops Adalbere of Wtirzburg, Altmann of Passau, Bernard of Merseburg, Gunther of Zeiz, St. Benno of Meissen, Albert of Worms. Burchard of Halberstadt, Herrmann of Metz, Reginhard of Minden, Wigold of Augsburg, Gebhard of Constance, Heinrich of Bamberg. The council recognised, first, the primacy of the pope, whose decisions it was allowed to no one to alter or to criticise. In conformity with the decrees of former popes, the consecration of the bishops unlawfully established by Henry IV, Wenzel of Mentz, Siegfried of Augsburg, Norbert of Chur, etc., was declared null, and likewise all other ordinations and consecrations of the same kind. The synod rejected the erroneous assertions of Wenzel of Mentz in regard to excommunication. Excommunications are only valuable when they are pronounced according to the forms adopted by the Church. The six following resolutions are of a general kind: The sixth canon recommends to the priests, deacons, and subdeacons perpetual continence; the seventh canon prohibits the lays from touching the altar-palls and holy vessels; according to the eighth canon, the lays shall not take hold of the dimes without having the consent of the legitimate owners; the ninth canon directs that the spring fast of Quatember shall be held in the first week of Lent, the summer fast in the week of Pentecost; the tenth canon decrees no one shall eat eggs or cheese during the forty days of Lent; the eleventh canon declares that the choice made by the legate Otto of Gebhard as bishop of Constance, and everything done by the legate in that city, is approved by the council. At the close of the council the anathema was pronounced, with burning tapers, against the anti-pope Wibert (pseudo- Clemens III), the heresiarch; against the apostate Hugo of Albano, who had presided at the Council of Worms in 1076; against Johannes (Petrus), archbishop of Parto, and against Petrus, late chancellor of the pope; against archbishop Liemar of Bremen, Udo of Hildesheim, Otto of Constance, Burchard of Basle, Huzmann of Spire, deposed bishops; finally, against the usurping bishops aWenzel, archbishop of Mentz; Siegfried, bishop of Augsburg; Norbert, bishop of Chur, and all their followers. See Labbe, Concil. x; Hardouin, Concil. vi; Hartzheim, Cone. Germ.; Binterim, Deutsche Conc. vol. iii; Flotho, Konig Heinrich IV (Stuttg. 1855). Two other synods were held at Quedlinburg — one in 1105, for the reformation of manners; a third in 1121, about the situation of the empire and the investitures. See Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lex. s.v.