council · 511 · Orléans
Clovis, a generation after his baptism, summoned thirty-two bishops of Gaul to Orléans. The canons bind church and crown together — sanctuary, clerical immunity, the king's voice in appointments — the working constitution of the Merovingian church, renewed at Orléans four more times in the century.
The First Council of Orléans was a synod convoked by Clovis I, King of the Franks, in 511. Clovis called for this synod four years after his victory over the Visigoths under Alaric II at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. The council was attended by thirty-two bishops, including four metropolitans, from across Gaul, and together they passed thirty-one decrees. The bishops met at Orléans to reform the church and construct a strong relationship between the crown and the Catholic episcopate, the majority of the canons reflecting compromise between these two institutions.
The Frankish church convened by its new Catholic king.