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Compiegne Synods of

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Compiegne, Councils of

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(Conventus Compendienses; Concilium Compendiense). The synods held in Compiegne began first in the middle of the 8th and ended in the 14th century. The Diet held by Pepin the Little, A.D. 757, at Compiegne, is counted among the synods, because the privileges of the archbishop Chrodegang were ratified and signed before the assembled bishops (Mansi, Conciliorum nova et ampl. Collectio, 7:653 sq., Florent. 1766). Whether the few church laws which were issued under Charlemagne in the year 775 as capitularies, which related partly to church government, partly to ecclesiastical revenues, and partly to monastic discipline, were established at a synod in Compiegne is very doubtful, because in the record of the capitulary there is only mention made of a synodalis conventus (see Harduinus, Acta Conciliorum, iii, 2056, Paris, 1714). A synod held there in 823, at which the bishops spoke of the usurpations practiced by laymen in church matters, may indeed be regarded as a diet (Mansi. l. c. 14:410, Venet. 1769). The synod held in Compiegne in 833 was of real importance in the development of the Church. In the year 829, a Council at Paris, in a letter to the kings Louis and Lothaire, referring to an explanation which it was said the Emperor Constantine had given, set up the opinion that the bishops were the judges of kings, but that the bishops themselves could not be judged by men. This thesis first found a practical application at the above-mentioned synod in Compiegne, as the sons of Louis desired their father to be sentenced to a public penance by the bishops, and thus declared unfit to reign (Harduinus, l. c. iv, 1378, Par. 1714; Mansi. l. c. 14:647). The synod of 1095 declared a nobleman, Hugo de Juiaco, under the, ban; that of 1236 established several regulations which aimed at securing ecclesiastical liberties; and that of 1270 declared against the unlawful possession of ecclesiastical benefices, which was regarded as sacrilege (see Harduinus, l. c. 7:654, Par. 1714; Mansi. l. c. 24:13, Venet. 1782). More important was the synod in 1301, as it made several decisions concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction (Harduinus, l. c., p. 1247; Mansi. l. c. 25:87, Venet. 1782). The last synod in Compiegne issued only some decrees for the maintenance of Church discipline (see Harduinus, l. c. p. 1263; Mansi. l. c. p. 117). — Herzog, Real-Encyklopadie, Supplemented. 1:345.