The diocese's original date of establishment is uncertain. The earliest evidence of Christian presence in the area is a tombstone, which
Edmond-Frédéric Le Blant dated to the fourth century. The earliest known bishop dates to the sixth century. When the
Concordat of 1802 reestablished this diocese, it accorded to it also the
département of
Tarn, which was detached from it in 1822 by the creation of the
Archdiocese of Albi; and from 1802 to 1822, Montpellier was a suffragan of
Toulouse. A Papal Brief of 16 June 1877, authorized the bishops of Montpellier to style themselves bishops of Montpellier,
Béziers,
Agde,
Lodève and
Saint-Pons, in memory of the different dioceses united in the present diocese of Montpellier.
Maguelone was the original diocese. Local traditions, recorded in 1583 by Abbé Gariel in his
Histoire des évêques de Maguelonne, affirm that
St. Simon the Leper, having landed at the mouth of the
Rhône with
St. Lazarus and
his sisters, was the earliest apostle of Maguelone. Gariel invokes in favour of this tradition a certain manuscript brought from
Byzantium. But the chronicler,
Bishop Arnaud de Verdale (1339–1352) was ignorant of this alleged Apostolic origin of Maguelone. It is certain that the tombstone of a Christian woman named Vera was found at Maguelone; Le Blant assigns it to the 4th century. The first historically known Bishop of Maguelone, Boetius, assisted at the
Council of Narbonne in 589. Maguelone was completely destroyed in the course of the wars between
Charles Martel and the
Saracens. The diocese was then transferred to
Substantion, but Bishop Arnaud (1030–1060) brought it back to Maguelone which he rebuilt. Near Maguelone had grown up by degrees the two villages of Montpellier and
Montpellieret. According to legend, they were in the tenth century the property of the two sisters of St.
Fulcran,
Bishop of Lodève. About 975 they gave them to
Ricuin, Bishop of Maguelone. It is certain that about 990 Ricuin possessed these two villages; he kept Montpellieret and gave Montpellier in fief to the family of the Guillems. In 1085 Pierre, Count of Substantion and
Melgueil, became a vassal of the Holy See for this countship, and relinquished the right of nomination to the diocese of Maguelone.
Urban II charged the Bishop of Maguelone to exercise the papal suzerainty, and he spent five days in this town when he came to France to preach the
First Crusade. In 1215
Pope Innocent III gave the countship of Melgueil in fief to the Bishop of Maguelone, who thus became a
Prince-bishop. From that time the Bishop of Maguelone had the
right of coinage.
Pope Clement IV reproached (1266) Bishop
Bérenger Frédol with causing to be struck in his diocese a coin called "Miliarensis", on which was rend the name of Mahomet; in fact at that date the bishop, as well as the King of Aragon and the Count of Toulouse, authorized the coinage of Arabic money, not intended for circulation in Maguelone, but to be sold for exportation to the merchants of the Mediterranean. In July, 1204, Montpellier passed into the hands of
Peter II of Aragon, son-in-law of the last of the Guillems;
James I of Aragon, son of
Peter II, united the city to the
Kingdom of Majorca. In 1282 the King of Majorca paid homage to the King of France for Maguelone. Bérenger Frédol, Bishop of Maguelone, ceded Montpellier to
Philip IV of France (1292).
James III of Majorca sold Montpellier to
Philip VI (1349); and the city, save for the period from 1365 to 1382, was henceforth French. Urban V had studied theology and canon law at Montpellier and was crowned pope by
Cardinal Ardouin Aubert, nephew of
Innocent VI, and Bishop of Maguelone from 1352 to 1354; hence the attachment of Pope Urban for this diocese which he favoured greatly. In 1364 he founded at Montpellier of a Benedictine monastery under the patronage of St. Germain, and came himself to Montpellier to see the new church (9 January - 8 March 1367). He caused the city to be surrounded by ramparts, in order that the scholars might work there in safety; and finally he caused a large canal to be begun by which Montpellier might communicate with the sea. At the request of
King Francis I, who pleaded the epidemics and the ravages of the pirates which constantly threatened Maguelone,
Pope Paul III transferred the see to Montpellier (27 March 1536). Montpellier, into which
Calvinism was introduced in February, 1560, by the pastor, Guillaume Mauget, was much troubled by the wars of religion. Under
Henry III of France a sort of Calvinistic republic was installed there. The city was reconquered by Louis XIII (October, 1622). Among the 54 bishops of Maguelone, and the 18 bishops of Montpellier, may be mentioned: Blessed
Louis Aleman (1418–1423), later
Bishop of Arles;
Guillaume Pellicier (1527–68), whom king Francis I of France sent as an ambassador to Venice, and whose leaning as a humanist and naturalist made him after Scévole de Sainte-Marthe "the most learned man of his century"; the preacher Pierre Fenouillet (1608–52);
François de Bosquet (1657–76), whose historical labours were very useful to the celebrated Baluze; the bibliophile Colbert de Croissy (1696–1738), who induced the Oratorian
Pouget to compose in 1702 the famous "Catechism of Montpellier", condemned by the Holy See in 1712 and 1721 for
Jansenistic tendencies; Fournier (1806–34), who in 1801 was confined for a time in the madhouse at Bicêtre at the command of
Napoleon I Bonaparte, for a sermon against the Revolution. Among the numerous councils and synods held at Montpellier, the following merit mention: the council of 1162 in which
Pope Alexander III excommunicated the antipope, Victor; the provincial synod of 1195, which was occupied with the Saracens of Spain and the
Albigenses; the council of 1215, which was presided over by
Peter of Benevento,
legate of the Holy See and passed important canons concerning discipline, and declared also that subject to the approval of the pope, Toulouse and all the other towns taken from the Albigenses should be given to Simon de Montfort; the council of 1224, which rejected the request of Raymond, Count of Toulouse. who promised to protect the Catholic Faith and demanded that
Amaury de Montfort withdraw his claims to the countship of Toulouse; the council of 1258, which by permitting the seneschal of Beaucaire to arrest ecclesiastics taken in the act of crime, in order to hand them over to the bishop, made way for royal magistrates to exercise a certain power within the limits of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and thus inaugurated the movement as a result of which, under the name of "privileged cases", a certain number of offences committed by ecclesiastics became amenable to lay justice. ==Saints==