Council of Frankfurt

The Synod of Frankfurt in 794 was one of Charlemagne initiated important meeting representatives of the church of the Frankish Empire - bishops and priests from the Franks, Aquitaine, Italy and from Provence - in Franconofurd, the later Frankfurt am Main. The Council, meeting in June 794 Synod was the discussion and negotiation of several central spiritual and political issues.

This synod was also intended as a response to the Frankish Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, which had been organized by the Byzantine Empress Irene and had dealt among other things with the iconoclastic controversy. Because no Frankish church representatives had been invited in Nicaea, Charlemagne saw himself, since the year 768 king of the Frankish Empire, led to take this step because he was ignored as the most powerful ruler of the West and de facto ruler of Politics Pope as a subordinate barbarian king.

Participant

Among the participants of the Frankfurt synod included among other Paulinus II, Patriarch of Aquileia, Peter, Archbishop of Milan, the Benedictine abbot Benedict of Aniane, Carolingian reformers, the abbot of Saint- Mihiel Emerald and several bishops from England, Gaul and Aquitaine, from the Spanish market, the county and Rosselló from the lower Languedoc. As a representative of Pope Adrian I, and carriers of the Epistula dogmatica Theophylact and Stephen took part of Rome. The French church historian Emile Amann counts the Synod of Frankfurt to the " decisive councils of the universal Church ."

Issues and results of the Synod

The topics and agenda items of the Frankfurt synod of 794 were ordered these points are of different theological, political and legal weight in a total of 56 "chapters". The first five points of this " agenda " is part of the historical research given the greatest historical importance:

The following on this first five 51 chapters deal, among others, Synodalschreiben to several Spanish bishops on various topics, with the ban on the collection of admission fees by monasteries and other church legal decisions as well as tax details, such as the collection of tithes.

The results of the Synod of 794 were handwritten summarized and documented in a written in Medieval Latin Kapitulars. The Capitular of the Synod - also called Frankfurter Kapitular - has not been preserved in the original. However, there are up to the present handwritten transcriptions from the late 9th century and from the 10th and 11th centuries. Two of them are located in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. They are written in the font that was developed during the tenure of Charlemagne in the late 8th century, in the Carolingian minuscule. Whether the original Kapitulars was designed in this document, is not secured; However, this assumption seems to be obvious because of the time of this writing historical development and its dissemination in the Frankish kingdom.

Miscellaneous

• The Synod took place - as in the past often Charlemagne attributed royal palace was built in Frankfurt by his son, Louis the Pious around 822 - probably in a predecessor of the 7th century on the cathedral hill later so designated place. This visit by Charlemagne in Franconofurd was the occasion for the first documentary mention of the city - in a royal charter to the synod of February 22, 794 for the Regensburg monastery of St. Emmeram. In the written in Latin document states: " [ ... ] actum super Fluvium Moin in loco nuncupante Franconofurd " - " given ( issued ) on the river Main in a place called Frankfurt. "
• Charlemagne spending a total of about seven months in Frankfurt am Main. He used his stay for the Court, had theological opinions as well as certificates make and celebrated there the feast of Easter.
• During their stay in Frankfurt, August 10, 794, died Fastrada, the fourth wife of Charlemagne. It was in the Albansbasilika in Magontia, which later became the city of Mainz, buried.