VIENNE, COUNCIL OF, an ecclesiastical council, which in the Roman Catholic Church ranks as the fifteenth ecumenical synod. It met from October 16, 1311, to May 6, 1312, under the presidency of Pope Clement V. The transference of the Curia from Rome to Avignon (1309) had brought the papacy under the influence of the French crown; and this position Philip the Fair of France now endeavoured to utilize by demanding from the pope the dissolution of the powerful and wealthy order of the Temple, together with the introduction of a trial for heresy against the late Pope Boniface VIII. To evade the second claim, Clement
gave way on the first (see TEMPLARS). On the 22nd of March the order of the Temple was suppressed by the bull Vox clamantis, while further decisions as to the treatment of the order and its possessions followed later. Additional decisions were necessitated by the violent disputes which raged within the Franciscan order as to the observance of the rules of St. Francis of Assisi.
See Mansi, Collectio Conciliorum, vol. xxv. ; Hefele, Concilienge schichte, vol. vi. pp.