Aachen

• ABOUT:
  • 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:
  • 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia: (Read with caution)

• CATHEDRAL: Begun in 796 by the architect Udo of Metz. It was patterned after the famous Byzantine church of San Vitale in Ravenna. The cathedral was the site of the coronation and sometimes the burial of Western Emperors, and was also famous for its relics, many of them brought there before the Schism. These include (according to the Catholic Encyclopedia) "the cloak of the Blessed Virgin, the swaddling-clothes of the Infant Jesus, the loin-cloth worn by Our Lord on the Cross, and the cloth on which lay the head of St. John the Baptist after his beheading."
  • Offizielle Internetsite des Aachener Dom: Roman Catholic cathedral. Includes a beautiful recording of the IX Century hymn Christus Vincit.

  • Trésor d'Aix-la-Chapelle, ou, courte déscription des saintes réliques [Aachen: Vlieckx, 1825]
  • Karl's des Grossen Pfalzkapelle und ihre Kunstschätze by Franz Bock [Cologne: Schwann, 1865]

• COUNCILS OF AACHEN: A series of Frankish local councils held between 789 and 1023. One of these synods, held in 809, famously asserted the validity of the Filioque. This council was rejected by Pope Leo III, and soon the Frankish Church moved toward more Orthodox and traditional positions; the roots of the later Great Schism, however, are often traced in part to Aachen. The Orthodox councils at Aachen in the second decade of the IX Century brought about the increasing standardisation of monasticism in the West, with the Benedictine Order (as reformed by St. Benedict of Aniane) made pre-eminent and new rules governing canons and canonesses brought into effect. The Council of 799 is famous for the defeat of Adoptionism, which had become a major force in Spain through the influence of Felix, Bishop of Urgel.
  • Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia entry: