A church council held at the town of Vienne in the Dauphiné (16 October 1311-4 May 1312).
The main topics discussed in the course of the council were the fate of the Order of the Temple, the renewal of the crusade, and the reform of the church. Although impressive delegations from Aragon, England, Sicily, Portugal, Castile, Cyprus, and France attended, most Christian rulers stayed away; only the dauphin of Viennois, John II, came to the opening session. The number of prelates present (between 144 and 170) was relatively small in comparison with the average ecclesiastical participation in thirteenth-century councils; furthermore, the committee system established in the council reduced its general sessions to three.
At the opening session Pope Clement V reported on the different stages in the prosecution of the Templars and alluded in general terms to the project of the crusade and to the difficult situation of the church. Though during the first sessions of the council most prelates advocated giving the Templars the chance to defend their order against the charge of heresy, Capetian pressure prevailed. On 3 April 1312 a great majority of prelates voted for the immediate abolition of the order by apostolic mandate. Without pronouncing a guilty verdict on the order as a whole, the constitution Vox in excelso decreed the abolition of the Order of the Temple because of the many flaws of its members, which had become evident during the five-year trial. Clement V appointed special commissioners to carry out the conciliar decisions throughout Christendom. Provincial councils were to decide the fate of the Templars. Those who were found innocent or who had submitted to the church were to be given a pension, drawn on the property of the order, in accordance with their respective status. Those who relapsed or remained impenitent were to be treated with the full rigor of canon law. All fugitives were ordered to appear before the relevant provincial council within one year, failing which they were to be declared heretics. The property of the order, probably a main factor in the arrest of the Templars by King Philip the Fair of France, was assigned to the Order of the Hospital on the grounds of the latter’s efforts in the defense of Christendom.
Apart from the trial of the Templars, it was the business of a new crusade that received the highest priority in the deliberations. On 3 April 1312 Clement proclaimed a new passagium generale (major crusade expedition) overseas, its expense to be covered by the ecclesiastical establishment and its management to be entrusted to Philip IV the Fair. Philip took the cross in 1313, together with his three sons, his son- in-law Edward II of England, and many nobles, but the crusade never materialized.
In the field of church reform, the council objected to the infringement on ecclesiastical privileges by royal agents and to their readiness to condone crimes committed against the church. The prelates also accused the exempt orders (i.e., monastic orders subject only to the papacy) of encroaching on the rights of the secular clergy and eventually succeeded in restricting their prerogatives. Neither revolutionary nor conservative, on the whole the Council of Vienne maintained the doctrinaire path established by former ecumenical councils.