ANSEY, councils of
Ansey is a town in the diocese of Lyon, which was the seat of important provincial councils. At the first council (994), the archbishops of Lyon, Vienne, and Tarentaise, assisted by other bishops, confirmed the possessions of the abbey of Cluny at the request of St Odilo, who was its abbot, and restored the canons to the church of St Romanus. Nine disciplinary canons were published, including one ordering that the consecrated hosts be renewed every Sunday and imposing on priests the obligation to bring viaticum to the sick.
At another council held in 1025 in the church of St Romanus, Gauzlin, bishop of Mâcon, reproached Burchard, archbishop of Vienne, for having ordained some monks of the abbey of Cluny, which was situated in the diocese of Mâcon. The archbishop replied that he had acted at the invitation of the abbot of Cluny. Thereupon St Odilo, who was present, invoked in his favour the papal privilege by which the monastery was exempted from diocesan authority. The bishops contested the legitimacy of this concession, on the grounds that it was contrary to the canons of Chalcedon (canon 4), and the privilege of Cluny was for a time suspended. St Odilo, however, had his revenge at the Roman synod of March 1027, where he obtained confirmation with a new bull.
At the third council, celebrated in 1070, Aicard, bishop of Chalon-sur-Saône, donated the cloister of St Lawrence to the monastery of St Martin of l’Ille-Barbe near Lyon. The fourth, in 1076, regulated disciplinary matters. At the fifth (1100), those who had taken the cross but did not set out on crusade were excommunicated.