ABSTRACT
The Council of Bourges was the largest ecclesiastical assembly held in France up to that time, and in Latin Christendom only the Fourth Lateran Council had been larger. The unprecedented size of both councils was of course due to the new practice of summoning representatives of monastic and secular chapters, which continued to enlarge attendance at subsequent general councils. Events of such size provided a rare occasion for impressing and informing a wide clerical audience, and Romanus accordingly took the opportunity at Bourges to include two other matters in his agenda. In the last closed session, he attempted to secure support for the pope’s most recent efforts to promote the reform of Benedictine monasteries; then, in the final, public session he staged a dramatic reconciliation of the eighty Paris masters who had been excommunicated for assaulting him earlier that year. Although both events are recorded only by the chronicler of Tours, who rightly regarded them as minor incidents, still they deserve our attention, if only to complete the record of conciliar activity at Bourges.
