Council of Tours (1163)

The Council of Tours , which was not recognized as ecumenical , was held by Pope Alexander III in 1163 . convened in the city of Tours , made various decisions.

One of the most important decisions of the council for posterity and further development was arguably a ban on clergymen from performing surgery . Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine (German: “The church shrinks back from blood”) had far-reaching consequences for the history of medicine. In summary, the medicine of the European Middle Ages took a development that was only reversed in the 19th century. From then on, the academic doctors devoted themselves exclusively to internal medicine and renounced the practical exercise of the surgical art. This laid the foundation for the separation of surgery and internal medicine. The background was that there were deaths during and after surgical interventions, which was morally incompatible with the spiritual office of the then still predominantly clerical doctors. As a result, surgery was excluded from the universities as minor medicine and the art of surgery was given the responsibility of the skilled bathers and barbers . From then on there were two medical professions, namely that of the more or less technically trained surgeon (see also handicraft surgeon ) and that of the physicus, who was primarily introduced to scientific theory at universities, with an academic final examination as a licentiate or doctorate.

Furthermore, at the council the Cathars were condemned as heretics . The Pope issued a decree to princes to imprison people of different faiths and to confiscate their property, which was to have devastating consequences for the Inquisition . The term " Albigensians " is said to have been used for the first time at this council.

With regard to the sacraments of the Church, Alexander at the Council forbade the clergy to ask for consideration or payment for the funeral, the chrism and holy oil (prohibition of simony ). The second Lateran Council in 1139 had already condemned the invocation of customary law in the acceptance of money for the administration of the sacraments .

See also

• List of councils and synods

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1. ↑ Compare also Heinrich Schipperges : To differentiate the “physicus” from the “medicus” in Petrus Hispanus. In: III ° Congresso Nacional de Historia de la Medicina (Valencia 1969), III (1972), pp. 321-327.
2. ^ Hans Schadewaldt: Introduction . In: P. Wunderli (Ed.): The sick person in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance . Research Institute for the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Studia humaniora vol. 5) Droste, Düsseldorf 1986
3. ↑ See archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Lea Henry Charles: History of the Inquisition . Vol. 1, Aalen 1980
5. ↑ nec sub obtentu cuiusquam consuetudinis reatum suum quis tueatur, quia diuturnitas temporis non diminuit peccata, sed auget , Fuchs: Reasons and ways to recognize the stol fees . In: Acta Congressus Iuridici Internationalis . Volume 3, Rome 1936, p. 219.