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In the Year of our Lord 506. * 1.1 the Council of Agde in Languedoc, made a Decree, which in some sort refers to this Settlement; for it suffers those, who for the con∣venience of their Family, desires to have an Oratory, or as they speak now-a-days, a Chappel in the Country,
besides the common Places of assembling; it permits them there to serve God, except it be on principal Feast-days, for on this occasion it enjoins them to come to their Pa∣rishes, excommunicating the Church-men that shall serve in those Oratories, if they attempt any thing against this Decree, * 1.2 unless it be by the order or permission of the Bishop, in whose Diocess the Chappel is. Thence is it that Pope Leo the IVth forbids Laymen to establish a Priest in any Church whatever, without consent of the Bishops. The Council of Meaux, in the Year 845. Ex∣horts Princes and Lords to order it so, that the Priests which serve in their Chappels, should be ready to hinder and banish from their Houses all manner of Vice, and be careful to instruct the Domesticks, because Parish-Priests, and Bishops, and Ministers, are to do so unto the poorest and meanest of the People. Agabard, Bishop of Lyons, in the same Century, complains in a Book he writ of the Law of Priesthood; he complains, I say, * 1.3 of the abuse which reigns amongst great Lords in regard of their Priests and Chaplains, and of the little esteem they made of them, requiring of them services altogether unworthy the Degree they were to hold; And because these Priests dwelt in the Houses of Persons of Quality, they were called their Priests, * 1.4 and 'twas said the Priest of such a Lord; the which Pope Nicholas the Ist could not suffer, as appears by the Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny, con∣tained in the 1st Volume of the Library of Father Labbe, imprinted at Paris, Ann. 1657. there is in the 6th Tome of the Councils, divers Canons of a Synod, which as some think, was assembled at Pavia, in the Year 850. in the 18th of which, the Priests, whereof we speak, are cal∣led Acephales; * 1.5 and those which have them in their Fa∣milies, are warn'd not to entertain any but such as have been examin'd by the Bishops. Pope Ʋrban the IId, in
the 9th Canon of the Council which he held at Melphes, * 1.6 in the Year 1090. says near hand the same thing, and makes such another Decree.
Tom. 1. Conc. Gall. Can. 21. p. 165.
Collect. Rom. part 2. c. 41. p. 132.
Tom. 1, p. 134, 135, Paris. 1666.
Pag. 121.
Pag. 444.
Tom. 7. Conc. p. 504.