cult, usually small group devoted to a person, idea, or philosophy. The term cult is often applied to a religious movement that exists in some degree of tension with the dominant religious or cultural inclination of a society. In recent years the word cult has been most commonly used as a

sacred kingship: Ritual roles prescribed for kings in public or state functions: …king took part in the cult drama. The origin of the cult drama as a spontaneous event is still evident—for example, among the Asante in Africa—but it had its fullest expression in Mesopotamia and Egypt. In the Sed festival in Egypt the king, as ruler, renewed his rulership over the…

novel: Cult, or coterie, novels: The novel, unlike the poem, is a commercial commodity, and it lends itself less than the materials of literary magazines to that specialized appeal called coterie, intellectual or elitist. It sometimes happens that books directed at highly cultivated audiences—like Ulysses, Finnegans…

cult of personality, a deliberately created system of art, symbolism, and ritual centred on the institutionalized quasi-religious glorification of a specific individual. Since the 20th century, “cult of personality” has been most often used to refer to charismatic leader cults, a type of

Christianity: Relics and saints: The cult (system of religious beliefs and rituals) of the saints emerged in the 3rd century and gained momentum from the 4th to the 6th century. The bones of martyrs were believed to provide evidence of God’s power at work in the world, producing miracles and…

ancient Egyptian religion: The world of the dead: The majority of evidence from ancient Egypt comes from funerary monuments and burials of royalty, of the elite, and, for the Late period, of animals; relatively little is known of the mortuary practices of the mass of the population. Reasons for…

Egyptian art and architecture: Cult temples: …is generally thought that the Egyptian cult temple of the Old Kingdom owed most to the cult of the sun god Re at Heliopolis, which was probably open in plan and lacking a shrine. Sun temples were unique among cult temples; worship was centred on a cult object, the benben,…

French literature: The Decadents: …Against the Grain) and the Culte du moi (“Cult of the Ego”) trilogy (1888–91) by Maurice Barrès. It derives from the same determinist philosophy as Naturalism and has much in common aesthetically with Impressionism in that it focuses on subjectively perceived moments of physical experience, held to have no significance…

culteranismo, in Spanish literature, an esoteric style of writing that attempted to elevate poetic language and themes by re-Latinizing them, using classical allusions, vocabulary, syntax, and word order. To some extent an elaboration of the poetic practice of Louis de Góngora, the theory of

origins of agriculture: Known as cultigens, domesticated plants come from a wide range of families (groups of closely related genera that share a common ancestor; see genus). The grass (Poaceae), bean (Fabaceae), and nightshade or potato (Solanaceae) families have

cultivar, Any variety of a plant, originating through cloning or hybridization (see clone, hybrid), known only in cultivation. In asexually propagated plants, a cultivar is a clone considered valuable enough to have its own name; in sexually propagated plants, a cultivar is a pure line (for

cultured pearl, natural but cultivated pearl produced by a mollusk after the intentional introduction of a foreign object inside the creature’s shell. The discovery that such pearls could be cultivated in freshwater mussels is said to have been made in 13th-century China, and the Chinese have been

crop rotation: …rotation crops from three classifications: cultivated row, close-growing grains, and sod-forming, or rest, crops. Such a classification provides a ratio basis for balancing crops in the interest of continuing soil protection and production economy. It is sufficiently flexible for adjusting crops to many situations, for making changes when needed, and…

tobacco, common name of the plant Nicotiana tabacum and, to a limited extent, Aztec tobacco (N. rustica) and the cured leaf that is used, usually after aging and processing in various ways, for smoking, chewing, snuffing, and extraction of nicotine. Various other species in the genus Nicotiana are

cultivation, in agriculture and horticulture, the loosening and breaking up (tilling) of the soil or, more generally, the raising of crops. The soil around existing plants is cultivated—by hand using a hoe or by machine using a cultivator—to destroy weeds and promote growth by increasing soil

George Gerbner: Cultivation analysis (or cultivation theory), an important theoretical perspective in communication, is based on the idea that the views and behaviours of those who spend more time with the media, particularly television, internalize and reflect what they have seen on television. Cultivation theory focuses upon…

Culture System, revenue system in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) that forced farmers to pay revenue to the treasury of the Netherlands in the form of export crops or compulsory labour. It was introduced in 1830 by Johannes van den Bosch, then governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. According

George Gerbner: Cultivation analysis (or cultivation theory), an important theoretical perspective in communication, is based on the idea that the views and behaviours of those who spend more time with the media, particularly television, internalize and reflect what they have seen on television. Cultivation theory focuses upon…

cultivator, farm implement or machine designed to stir the soil around a crop as it matures to promote growth and destroy weeds. Horse-drawn cultivators were introduced in the mid-19th century. By 1870 a farmer with two horses could cultivate as much as 6 hectares (15 acres) a day with a machine

Cesare Pavese: …also edited the anti-Fascist review La Cultura. His work led to his arrest and imprisonment by the government in 1935, an experience later recalled in “Il carcere” (published in Prima che il gallo canti, 1949; in The Political Prisoner, 1955) and the novella Il compagno (1947; The Comrade, 1959). His…

Japan: Cultural institutions: The national government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (established 1968) is responsible for promoting and disseminating different aspects of culture, as well as preserving cultural properties and historical sites. A number of national museums and research institutes of cultural properties are attached to the agency. Of particular note is…

Quebec: The arts and cultural institutions: …among these institutions is the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, which is responsible for improving the quality of the language used and for stimulating cultural, literary, and other artistic activities. Created in 1961 and modeled in part on the Canada Council, which had been founded in 1957, the Ministry of Cultural…

culture area: The endurance of the culture area approach: …and published the immensely popular Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America, which remained in print almost continuously from 1939 until 1976. Kroeber’s close colleague at Berkeley, geographer Carl Sauer, and the many students each fostered also promulgated the culture area approach to a wide audience.

Hawaii: Education: The Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West, commonly referred to as the East-West Centre, is a project of the federal government housed at the Manoa campus of the University of Hawaii. It provides specialized and advanced academic programs and technological training to…

cultural anthropology, a major division of anthropology that deals with the study of culture in all of its aspects and that uses the methods, concepts, and data of archaeology, ethnography and ethnology, folklore, and linguistics in its descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the world.

cultural appropriation, adoption of certain language, behaviour, clothing, or tradition belonging to a minority culture or social group by a dominant culture or group in a way that is exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical. An imbalance of power between the appropriator and the appropriated

culture area, in anthropology, geography, and other social sciences, a contiguous geographic area within which most societies share many traits in common. Delineated at the turn of the 20th century, it remains one of the most widely used frameworks for the description and analysis of cultures.

anthropology: The study of ethnicity, minority groups, and identity: This cultural comprehensiveness—a unique set of cultural characteristics perceived as expressing themselves in commonly unique ways across the sociocultural life of a population—characterizes the concept of ethnicity. It revolves around not just a “population,” a numerical entity, but a “people,” a comprehensively unique cultural entity.

art criticism: The irony of the avant-garde: …Daniel Bell pointed out in The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1979), the avant-garde artist “swiftly shapes the audience and the market.” As Bell believes, the surprise and shock of the new dwindles into fashionable novelty, fueled by capitalist momentum rather than profound concern for the artistic and human truth, which…

sociology: Cultural theory: Finally, cultural theories of the 1930s emphasized human ability to innovate, accumulate, and diffuse culture. Heavily influenced by social and cultural anthropology, many sociologists concluded that culture was the most important factor in accounting for its own evolution and that of society. By…

culture: Diffusion: “Culture is contagious,” as a prominent anthropologist once remarked, meaning that customs, beliefs, tools, techniques, folktales, ornaments, and so on may diffuse from one people or region to another. To be sure, a culture trait must offer some advantage, some utility or pleasure, to…

diplomacy: The United Nations and the changing world order: …sanctioned information, and so-called “cultural diplomacy”—as typified by the international tours of Russian dance companies and the cultural programs of the Alliance Française, the British Council, and various American libraries—expanded as well. Cold War competition also extended to international arms transfers. Gifts or sales of weapons and military training…

ecofeminism: Radical ecofeminism and cultural ecofeminism: Cultural ecofeminists, on the other hand, encourage an association between women and the environment. They contend that women have a more intimate relationship with nature because of their gender roles (e.g., family nurturer and provider of food) and their biology (e.g., menstruation, pregnancy, and lactation).…

human ecology: …cultural properties, it is called cultural ecology.

water pollution: Domestic sewage: …water pollution (a phenomenon called cultural eutrophication), it can lead to the premature aging and death of a body of water.

cultural evolution, the development of one or more cultures from simpler to more complex forms. In the 18th and 19th centuries the subject was viewed as a unilinear phenomenon that describes the evolution of human behaviour as a whole. It has since been understood as a multilinear phenomenon that

feminism: Dissension and debate: Finally, cultural or “difference” feminism, the last of the three currents, rejected the notion that men and women are intrinsically the same and advocated celebrating the qualities they associated with women, such as their greater concern for affective relationships and their nurturing preoccupation with others. Inherent…

Plains Indian: Syncretism, assimilation, and self-determination: New religious movements were adopted during the early reservation period—first the Ghost Dance and later peyotism. Both were syncretic, combining elements of traditional religions with those of Christianity. The Ghost Dance began as a redemptive movement in the Great Basin culture

geography: Geography in the United States: …was an approach—widely known as cultural geography—associated with Carl Sauer (1889–1975), a University of Chicago geography graduate, and the associates and students whom he led at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1923 to 1957. Sauer was also strongly influenced by the Germans, but he emphasized the study of landscape…

World Heritage site: Designating World Heritage sites: Cultural heritage sites include hundreds of historic buildings and town sites, important archaeological sites, and works of monumental sculpture or painting. Natural heritage sites are restricted to those natural areas that (1) furnish outstanding examples of Earth’s record of life or its geologic processes, (2)…

historiography: Social and cultural history: Like much social history, cultural history could claim an ancestry from early works by Lucien Febvre (1878–1956) and Marc Bloch (1866–1944), who were early contributors to the social-science journal Revue de Synthèse Historique. In Les Rois Thaumaturges: étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance royale, particulièrement en…

cultural imperialism, in anthropology, sociology, and ethics, the imposition by one usually politically or economically dominant community of various aspects of its own culture onto another nondominant community. It is cultural in that the customs, traditions, religion, language, social and moral

imposter syndrome: Sometimes called cultural imposter syndrome, this phenomenon can take many forms but is common among members of marginalized communities who feel that they do not have the correct experiences or feelings to be counted as a member of those groups. Cultural imposter syndrome is not unusual among…

George Gerbner: …created as part of the Cultural Indicators Project, which holds a database that spans more than 3,000 television programs and 35,000 characters, to assist in providing continuous and consistent monitoring of violence in prime-time network broadcast programming. Violence was studied as a demonstration of power, examining the demographic profiles of…

social change: Tension and adaptation: …sociologist William Fielding Ogburn called cultural lag, which refers in particular to a gap that develops between fast-changing technology and other slower-paced sociocultural traits.

E.D. Hirsch, Jr.: …is best known for his Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (1987). He also cowrote The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (1988; with Joseph F. Kett and James Trefil) and was the main editor of A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (1989).

William Shakespeare: New interpretive approaches: …came to be known as Cultural Materialism; it was a first cousin to American New Historicism, though often with a more class-conscious and Marxist ideology. The chief proponents of this movement with regard to Shakespeare criticism are Jonathan Dollimore, Alan Sinfield, John Drakakis, and Terry Eagleton.

particularism, school of anthropological thought associated with the work of Franz Boas and his students (among them A.L. Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead), whose studies of culture emphasized the integrated and distinctive way of life of a given people. Particularism stood in opposition

multiculturalism: …response to the fact of cultural pluralism in modern democracies and a way of compensating cultural groups for past exclusion, discrimination, and oppression. Most modern democracies comprise members with diverse cultural viewpoints, practices, and contributions. Many minority cultural groups have experienced exclusion or the denigration of their contributions and identities…

primitivism: …to the simple life (cultural primitivism). Linked with this is the notion that what is natural should be a standard of human values. Nature may mean what is intrinsic, objective, normal, healthy, or universally valid. Various senses of primitivism depend on whether the natural is set over against historical…

art and cultural property repatriation: …return of art or other cultural objects to their country or culture of origin. It differs from art restitution, which is typically used to describe instances in which a piece of art or other cultural object is returned to an individual, rather than to a country or people. Many discussions…

illicit antiquities: International responses: legislation is the 1983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA, or CPIA), which allows the U.S. government to respond to requests from other states party to the UNESCO convention to impose import restrictions on certain classes of archaeological or ethnographic material. Import restrictions apply even if material is…

cultural anthropology: Cultural psychology: One development of the interwar period led certain cultural anthropologists to speak of a new subdiscipline, cultural psychology, or ethnopsychology, which is based on the idea that culture conditions the very psychological makeup of individuals (as opposed to the older notion of a…

Franz Boas: Contribution to anthropology: …are the result of environmental, cultural, and historical circumstances. Other anthropologists, frequently called cultural relativists, argue that the evolutionary view is ethnocentric, deriving from a human disposition to characterize groups other than one’s own as inferior, and that all surviving human groups have evolved equally but in different ways.

Cultural Revolution, upheaval launched by Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong during his last decade in power (1966–76) to renew the spirit of the Chinese Revolution. Fearing that China would develop along the lines of the Soviet model and concerned about his own place in history, Mao threw

urban culture: Definitions of the city and urban cultures: In “The Cultural Role of Cities,” Robert Redfield and Milton Singer tried to improve on all previous conceptions of the city, including the one Redfield had himself used in his folk-urban model, by emphasizing the variable cultural roles played by cities in societies. Redfield and Singer…

cultural studies, interdisciplinary field concerned with the role of social institutions in the shaping of culture. Cultural studies emerged in Britain in the late 1950s and subsequently spread internationally, notably to the United States and Australia. Originally identified with the Center for

culture: Acculturation: …in Yucatán or did these traits originate in Egypt and diffuse from there to the Americas, as some anthropologists have believed? Some schools of ethnological theory have held to one view, some, to another. The 19th-century classical evolutionists (which included Edward Burnett Tylor and Lewis H. Morgan, among others) held…

dimensions of cultural variability, a concept that emerged from the work of Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede and that refers to the dominant values, principles, beliefs, attitudes, and ethics that are shared by an identifiable group of people that constitute a culture. These dimensions

peace psychology: …that person is engaging in cultural violence. Direct violence is supported by the culturally violent notion of just war theory, which argues that under certain conditions, it is acceptable to kill others (e.g., defense of the homeland, using war as a last resort). One of the main challenges for peace…

anthropology: Anthropology in Africa: …organizations, a concept known as culturalism. In South Africa this culturalism supported the ideology of separate development, or apartheid, while in southern Sudan (now the independent country of South Sudan) it was an ingredient in the general breakdown of order. Everywhere it overlooked the multicultural reality of Africa, where situations…

kinship: Culturalist accounts: As noted above, while anthropologists had made the study of kinship in non-Western cultures their particular preserve, the study of modern kinship in the West was on the whole dominated by sociologists. It was assumed by many practitioners of both disciplines that kinship…

culture, behaviour peculiar to Homo sapiens, together with material objects used as an integral part of this behaviour. Thus, culture includes language, ideas, beliefs, customs, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, and ceremonies, among other elements. The existence and

Culture and Anarchy, major work of criticism by Matthew Arnold, published in 1869. In it Arnold contrasts culture, which he defines as “the study of perfection,” with anarchy, the prevalent mood of England’s then new democracy, which lacks standards and a sense of direction. Arnold classified

Nick Joaquin: …were published in the book Culture and History: Occasional Notes on the Process of Philippine Becoming (1988). Joaquin’s later works are mostly nonfiction, including Manila, My Manila: A History for the Young (1990), The D.M. Guevara Story (1993), and Mr. F.E.U., the Culture Hero That Was Nicanor Reyes (1995).

Poland: Urban settlement: The Palace of Culture and Science, a skyscraper built in the Soviet style in the 1950s, still dominates the skyline. Many of Warsaw’s inhabitants live in large unattractive blocks of flats that were built around the edge of the city in the 1960s and ’70s. In…

culture area, in anthropology, geography, and other social sciences, a contiguous geographic area within which most societies share many traits in common. Delineated at the turn of the 20th century, it remains one of the most widely used frameworks for the description and analysis of cultures.

Expo Shanghai 2010: …and a large new multipurpose Culture Center, built just to the northwest along the riverbank. The other two main buildings, located on the east side of the Expo Axis, were the Expo Center, a multiple-use venue, and the Theme Pavilion structure, which housed three of the five theme pavilions.

Boy George: Culture Club: Boy George broke onto London’s music scene when fashion designer and music manager Malcolm McLaren asked him to join, as a second singer, the new wave band Bow Wow Wow. Boy George’s stage name with the group was Lieutenant Lush. Shortly thereafter, however,…

culture: Cultural traits: …traits is conventionally called a culture complex. The association of traits in a complex may be of a functional and mechanical nature, such as horse, saddle, bridle, quirt, and the like, or it may lie in conceptional or emotional associations, such as the acts and attitudes involved in seclusion in…

culture contact, contact between peoples with different cultures, usually leading to change in both systems. The effects of culture contact are generally characterized under the rubric of acculturation, a term encompassing the changes in artifacts, customs, and beliefs that result from

myth: Culture heroes: The master of the animals or corn mother is frequently found in association with animal culture heroes. An animal or trickster who can assume animal form secures for humans the various attributes of culture (acting either in consort with or opposition to the…

cultural anthropology: Boas and the culture history school: Cultural anthropology was also diversifying its concepts and its areas of research without losing its unity. Franz Boas, a German-born American, for example, was one of the first to scorn the evolutionist’s search for selected facts to grace abstract evolutionary theories; he…

growth medium, solution freed of all microorganisms by sterilization (usually in an autoclave, where it undergoes heating under pressure for a specific time) and containing the substances required for the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria, protozoans, algae, and fungi. The medium may be

culture area, in anthropology, geography, and other social sciences, a contiguous geographic area within which most societies share many traits in common. Delineated at the turn of the 20th century, it remains one of the most widely used frameworks for the description and analysis of cultures.

Culture System, revenue system in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) that forced farmers to pay revenue to the treasury of the Netherlands in the form of export crops or compulsory labour. It was introduced in 1830 by Johannes van den Bosch, then governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. According

culture: Acculturation: …in Yucatán or did these traits originate in Egypt and diffuse from there to the Americas, as some anthropologists have believed? Some schools of ethnological theory have held to one view, some, to another. The 19th-century classical evolutionists (which included Edward Burnett Tylor and Lewis H. Morgan, among others) held…

Joseph Goebbels: …of the newly formed “Chamber of Culture.” In this capacity he controlled, besides propaganda as such, the press, radio, theatre, films, literature, music, and the fine arts. In May 1933 he was instrumental in the burning of “unGerman” books at the Opera House in Berlin. “The era of extreme…

pure culture, in microbiology, a laboratory culture containing a single species of organism. A pure culture is usually derived from a mixed culture (one containing many species) by transferring a small sample into new, sterile growth medium in such a manner as to disperse the individual cells

culture-and-personality studies, branch of cultural anthropology that seeks to determine the range of personality types extant in a given culture and to discern where, on a continuum from ideal to perverse, the culture places each type. The type perceived as ideal within a culture is then referred

culture: Various definitions of culture: In Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (1952), U.S. anthropologists A.L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn cited 164 definitions of culture, ranging from “learned behaviour” to “ideas in the mind,” “a logical construct,” “a statistical fiction,” “a psychic defense mechanism,” and so on. The definition—or…

buttermilk: Cultured buttermilk, like skim milk, consists mainly of water (about 90 percent), the milk sugar lactose (about 5 percent), and the protein casein (about 3 percent). Buttermilk made from low-fat milk contains small quantities (up to 2 percent) of butterfat.

sour cream, dairy product made from fermented cream inoculated with lactic acid bacteria. The addition of bacteria results in a tart thick substance that is often used as a condiment or added to stews or soups. Like yogurt and other fermented foods, sour cream contains probiotic bacteria, which may

buttermilk: Cultured buttermilk, like skim milk, consists mainly of water (about 90 percent), the milk sugar lactose (about 5 percent), and the protein casein (about 3 percent). Buttermilk made from low-fat milk contains small quantities (up to 2 percent) of butterfat.

buttermilk: Cultured buttermilk, like skim milk, consists mainly of water (about 90 percent), the milk sugar lactose (about 5 percent), and the protein casein (about 3 percent). Buttermilk made from low-fat milk contains small quantities (up to 2 percent) of butterfat.

cultured pearl, natural but cultivated pearl produced by a mollusk after the intentional introduction of a foreign object inside the creature’s shell. The discovery that such pearls could be cultivated in freshwater mussels is said to have been made in 13th-century China, and the Chinese have been

Lisbon: Cultural life: Culturgest, a multifunctional auditorium and exhibition centre, opened in Lisbon in the early 2000s.

Leslie A. White: …culture that he called “culturology.”

gay rights movement: The gay rights movement since the mid-20th century: …Cultuur en Ontspannings Centrum (“Culture and Recreation Center”), or COC, was founded in 1946 in Amsterdam. In the United States the first major male organization, founded in 1950–51 by Harry Hay in Los Angeles, was the Mattachine Society (its name reputedly derived from a medieval French society of masked…

Culture System, revenue system in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) that forced farmers to pay revenue to the treasury of the Netherlands in the form of export crops or compulsory labour. It was introduced in 1830 by Johannes van den Bosch, then governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. According

Cluj-Napoca, city, capital of Cluj județ (county), northwestern Romania. The historic capital of Transylvania, it is approximately 200 mi (320 km) northwest of Bucharest in the Someșul Mic River valley. The city stands on the site of an ancient Dacian settlement, Napoca, which the Romans made a

Culver City, city, Los Angeles county, California, U.S. Culver City is adjacent to Beverly Hills (to the north) and Inglewood (to the south), near downtown Los Angeles. The area, originally inhabited by the Tongva (Gabrielino) Indians, was explored in the late 18th century by the Spanish, who

Isle of Wight: …breadth of the island, from Culver Cliff in the east to The Needles in the west. The ridge is the thickest bed of chalk in the British Isles. The Needles are three detached masses of chalk that lie off the island’s westernmost point and rise to about 100 feet (30…

Joni Ernst is an American politician who was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 2014 and began her first term representing Iowa the following year. She was the first female combat veteran to serve in the Senate and the first woman to represent Iowa in Congress. Culver was raised on a

culverin, medieval cannon of relatively long barrel and light construction. It fired light (8–16-pound [3.6–7.3-kg]) projectiles at long ranges along a flat trajectory. The culverin was adapted to field use by the French in the mid-15th century and to naval use by the English in the late 16th

Nathanael Culverwel was an English empiricist philosopher who specialized in the application of reason to ethical problems. He is remembered as a probable influence on John Locke. Details of Culverwel’s life are obscure. Though it is known that he was elected to a fellowship at the University of

Robert Adam: Later works: …most important of these is Culzean (1777–92), Ayrshire, for the earls of Cassilis. Another neo-Gothic work is the interior of Alnwick Castle (c. 1770–80; destroyed in the 19th century), Northumberland.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: …masses are such motets as Cum ortus fuerit and Accepit Jesus calicem, the latter apparently a favourite of the composer’s—an assumption justified because he is depicted holding a copy of it in a portrait now in the Vatican.

Martin Luther: Luther, Cajetan, and Eck: …Leo X issued the bull Cum postquam (“When After”), which defined the doctrine of indulgences and addressed the issue of the authority of the church to absolve the faithful from temporal punishment. Luther’s views were declared to be in conflict with the teaching of the church.

Scotland: Medieval economy and society: …in 1192, the papal bull Cum universi declared the Scottish church to be subject only to Rome, and in 1225 the bull Quidam vestrum permitted the Scottish church, lacking a metropolitan see, to hold provincial councils by authority of Rome. However, such councils, which might have served to check abuses,…