The Sixteenth
Council of Toledo
From the 5th century to the 7th century AD, about thirty synods, variously counted, were held at Toledo (''Concilia toletana'') in what would come to be part of Spain. The earliest, directed against Priscillianism, assembled in 400. The "thi ...
first met in
Toledo, Spain
Toledo ( , ) is a city and municipality of Spain, capital of the province of Toledo and the ''de jure'' seat of the government and parliament of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. Toledo was declare ...
on 25 April 693. It was the second of three councils convened by
Visigothic
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...
king
Egica
Egica, Ergica, or Egicca (''c''. 610 – 701/703), was the Visigoth King of Hispania and Septimania from 687 until his death. He was the son of Ariberga and the brother-in-law of Wamba.
Accession
He was married (''c''. 670) to Cixilo (also k ...
.
In 692, the
archbishop of Toledo
This is a list of Bishops and Archbishops of Toledo ( la, Archidioecesis Metropolitae Toletana). ,
Sisebert Sisbert or Sisebert was the metropolitan archbishop of Toledo from 690 to 693 as successor to the famous Julian.
In the latter year, he was at the head of a conspiracy to dethrone the king, Egica. He planned to assassinate the king, Queen Liuvi ...
, led a rebellion with many nobles to install one
Suniefred
Suniefred ( 700) was a Visigothic nobleman who rebelled during the reign of Egica and briefly ruled as king from Toledo.
A single coin that is related stylistically to those of the sole reign of Egica indicates that a king of the name of SVNIE ...
as king. The rebellion was put down in the latter half of that year and, at an unusual spring day, Egica called a general council of the church in Spain to deal with the future security of the kingship and the discipline of the renegades. Sixty bishops, five abbots, and six counts attended the council. The bishops of
Narbonensis
Gallia Narbonensis (Latin for "Gaul of Narbonne", from its chief settlement) was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in Southern France. It was also known as Provincia Nostra ("Our Province"), because it was the ...
could not attend on account of an epidemic.
The king opened the council with a speech declaring that any officials who betrayed the trust of the Gothic people would be driven from office and enslaved to the treasury, forfeiting their property to the royal coffers. The king, the council concurred, could bestow this confiscated property on anyone he wished, the church obviously not excluded. The descendants of rebels were likewise prohibited from holding any palatine office. Finally, the rebels were
anathema
Anathema, in common usage, is something or someone detested or shunned. In its other main usage, it is a formal excommunication. The latter meaning, its ecclesiastical sense, is based on New Testament usage. In the Old Testament, anathema was a cr ...
tised on the basis of the seventy-fifth canon of the
Fourth Council of Toledo
The Fourth Council of Toledo was held in 633. It was convened by Visigothic king Sisenand and took place at the church of Saint Leocadia in Toledo.
Probably under the presidency of the noted Isidore of Seville, the council regulated many matters ...
.
On 2 May, the final day of the council, the bishops solemnly excommunicated Sisebert for life and defrocked him. He would be allowed communion on his deathbed only, unless the king pardoned him earlier. Without precedent, the bishops transferred the archbishop of
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
,
Felix
Felix may refer to:
* Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name
Places
* Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen
* Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
, to Toledo and the archbishop of
Braga
Braga ( , ; cel-x-proto, Bracara) is a city and a municipality, capital of the northwestern Portuguese district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality has a resident population of 193,333 inhabitants (in ...
,
Faustinus
Faustinus was a 3rd-century CE political figure who launched a rebellion against the Gallic Emperor Tetricus I. His full name and his year of birth are unknown. According to a small number of literary sources (Aurelius Victor, Eutropius,Eutropius ...
, to Seville. They also ordered the bishops of Narbonensis to approve the decrees of the Sixteenth Council in a local synod of their own.
The council also reformed the laws of the realm on several points. Incorporated into the ''
Forum Iudicum
The ''Visigothic Code'' ( la, Forum Iudicum, Liber Iudiciorum; es, Fuero Juzgo, ''Book of the Judgements''), also called ''Lex Visigothorum'' (English: ''Law of the Visigoths''), is a set of laws first promulgated by king Chindasuinth (642–653 ...
'' formulated by
Chindasuinth
Chindasuinth (also spelled Chindaswinth, Chindaswind, Chindasuinto, Chindasvindo, or Khindaswinth (Latin: Chintasvintus, Cindasvintus; 563 – 30 September 653) was Visigothic King of Hispania, from 642 until his death in 653. He succeeded Tulga, ...
, published by
Recceswinth
Recceswinth (died 1 September 672) was the Visigoths, Visigothic Visigothic Kingdom, King of Hispania, and Septimania in 649–672. He ruled jointly with his father Chindaswinth until his father's death in 653.
Name
His Gothic language, Gothic n ...
, and modified by
Erwig
Erwig ( la, Flavius Ervigius; after 642 – 687) was a king of the Visigoths in Hispania (680–687).
Parentage
According to the 9th-century '' Chronicle of Alfonso III'', Erwig was the son of Ardabast, who had journeyed from the Byzantine Empire ...
was the law that any oath rendered unto anybody other than the monarch was invalid and illegal. A few laws were revoked and some were reestablished, such as that prohibiting the mutilation of
slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
s.
Chindasuinth had punished
homosexual acts
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peo ...
with
castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmaceut ...
and
excommunication
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
, and the Toledo council reaffirmed similar rules. The Toledo council required that, for those convicted of homosexual acts, laypeople should be castrated and whipped, and clergy should be defrocked and exiled; after the council, Egica further ordered that clergy be castrated and executed.
The council was also important in the long legal history of the Visigoths in suppressing
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
. Egica had apparently added to Erwig's law code tax-freedom to Jewish ''
converso
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert", () was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of his or her descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian po ...
s'' and transferred their former burden to the unconverted. At the Sixteenth Council, converts were allowed to trade with Christians, but not until he had proved himself by recitation of creeds and eating of non
kosher
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...
food. Penalties were even enacted against Christians who transacted with unconverted or unproven Jews.
In regards the church, asides from dealing with the rebel Sisebert and the vacancy of his see, two important decrees were promulgated. Firstly, the bishops were ordered to maintain all church edifices in good repair and keep a priest in each
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...
. Secondly, the bishops were ordered to take all offerings offered by "rustics" to
pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...
gods and exterminate these continuing practice (no doubt only occurring in the remotest provincial backwaters).
References
Sources
*Thompson, E. A., ''The Goths in Spain'',
Clarendon Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
:
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, 1969.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Toledo16
Sixteen
693
7th century in the Visigothic Kingdom
7th-century church councils
Medieval LGBT history
Persecution of LGBT people
Christianity and Judaism