Constituted by the same Concordat metropolitan to the suffragan Bishoprics of
Angoulême,
Poitiers and
La Rochelle, the see of Bordeaux received in 1822, as additional suffragans, those of
Agen, withdrawn from the
metropolitan of Toulouse, and the newly re-established
Périgueux and
Luçon. In 1850, three (then colonial) Bishoprics of
Fort-de-France (
Martinique),
Guadeloupe and Basse-Terre (
Guadeloupe), and
Saint-Denis de la Réunion (
Réunion), were added. Since 2002, the province of Bordeaux (corresponding historically with Aquitania Secunda) has been substantially modified following the abolition of the province of Auch and the creation of that of Poitiers.
Early history According to old
Limousin legends which date back to the beginning of the eleventh century,
Bordeaux was evangelized in the first century by
Saint Martial (Martialis), who replaced a temple to the unknown god, which he destroyed, with one dedicated to
Saint Stephen. The same legends represent Martial as having brought to the Soulac coast
Saint Veronica, who is still especially venerated in the church of Notre-Dame de Fin des Terres at
Soulac; as having cured Sigebert, the paralytic husband of the pious Benedicta, and made him Bishop of Bordeaux, and as having addressed letters in Latin to the people of Bordeaux, where he left the pastoral staff now treasured as a relic by the Chapter of Saint-Seurin. The first Bishop of Bordeaux known to history, Orientalis, is mentioned at the
Council of Arles (314). By the close of the fourth century Christianity had made such progress in Bordeaux that a synod was held there (384), summoned by the Emperor Maximus, for the purpose of adopting measures against the
Priscillianists, whose heresy had caused popular disturbances. This was during the episcopate of
Delphinus of Bordeaux (380–404), who attended the
Council of Saragossa in 380, and maintained correspondence with
St. Ambrose and with
St. Paulinus of Nola. At the beginning of the 5th century, a mysterious figure, who according to Saint
Gregory of Tours came from the East, appeared in Bordeaux:
Severinus (Seurin), in whose favour Bishop Amand abdicated the see from 410 to 420, resuming it after Seurin's death and occupying it until 432. In the 6th century, Bordeaux had as its bishop Leontius II (542–564), a man of great influence who used his wealth in building churches and clearing lands and whom the
poet Fortunatus calls
patriae caput. During this
Merovingian period the cathedral church, founded in the fourth century, occupied the same site that it does today, tight against the ramparts of the ancient city. The Faubourg Saint-Seurin outside the city was a great centre of popular devotion, with its three large basilicas of Saints Stephen, Seurin, and Martin surrounding a large necropolis from which a certain number of sarcophagi are still preserved. The cemetery of Saint Seurin was full of tombs of the Merovingian (early dark ages) period around which the popular imagination was to create legends. In the high noon of the Middle Ages, it used to be told how Christ had consecrated this cemetery and that
Charlemagne, having fought the
Saracens near Bordeaux, had visited it and laid
Roland's wonderful horn Olivant/Oliphant on the altar of Seurin. Many tombs passed for those of Charlemagne's gallant knights and others were honored as the resting-places of Veronica and Benedicta. At the other extremity of the city, Benedictines drained and filled in the marshes of L'Eau-Bourde and founded there the monastery of Sainte-Croix. While thus surrounded by evidence of Christian conquest, the academic Bordeaux of the Merovingian period continued to cherish the memory of its former school of eloquence, whose chief glories had been the poet
Ausonius (310–395) and St Paulinus (353–431), who had been a rhetorician at Bordeaux and died
Bishop of Nola.
Middle Ages During the whole 8th century and part of the 9th, no bishops are mentioned for Bordeaux among Vatican and local records.
Frotharius was archbishop in 870, when he fled the city in the face of
Viking raids. In the late tenth century, ecclesiastical power was once again concentrated in the hands of the archbishop of Bordeaux when
Gombald, brother of
William II of Gascony and bishop of all the
Gascon sees became archbishop (989). In 1027, the
duke of Gascony,
Sancho VI, and the
duke of Aquitaine,
William V, joined together to select
Geoffrey II, an Aquitanian Frank, as archbishop. This represented a new ecumenical rôle for the archbishop spanning both regions. The reigns of
William VIII and
William IX (1052–1127), were noted for the splendid development of
Romanesque architecture in Bordeaux. Parts of the churches of Sainte-Croix and Saint-Seurin belong to that time, and the Cathedral of Saint-André was begun in 1096. During the Middle Ages, a struggle between the metropolitan sees of Bordeaux and
Bourges was brought about by the claims of the latter to the primacy of Aquitaine. This question has been closely investigated by modern scholars, and it has been ascertained that a certain letter from
Nicholas I to Rodolfus, which purports to date the existence of the primacy of Bourges from the ninth century, is not authentic. As the capital of the Roman province
Aquitania prima, Bourges at an early date vaguely aspired to pre-eminence over the provinces of
Aquitania secunda and
Aquitania tertia and thus over Bordeaux and it was about 1073 that these aspirations were more formally asserted; between 1112 and 1126 the papacy acknowledged them, and in 1146,
Pope Eugenius III confirmed the primacy of
Pierre de la Chatre,
Archbishop of Bourges, over Bordeaux. In 1232,
Gregory IX gave the Archbishop of Bourges, as
patriarch , the right to visit the province of Aquitaine, imposed upon the Archbishop of Bordeaux the duty of assisting, at least once, at the councils held by his "brother" of Bourges, and decided that appeals might be made from the former to the latter. Occasionally however, as in 1240 and 1284, the Archbishops of Bourges came to Bordeaux, found the doors of the churches closed against them and answered with excommunication the solemn protests made by the Bordeaux clergy against their visits. Aquitaine was lost to France by the annulment of the marriage between
Louis VII and
Eleanor of Aquitaine (that earlier took place in the
Cathedral of Bordeaux in 1137), and Bordeaux became the capital of the English possessions in France. Thereupon the struggle between the metropolitans of Bordeaux and Bourges assumed a political character, the King of France necessarily upholding the claims of Bourges. Most of the archbishops were conspicuous as agents of English policy in Aquitaine, notably: Guillaume Amanieu (1207–26), on whom King
Henry III conferred the title of
seneschal and guardian of all his lands beyond the sea, and who took part
in Spain in the wars against the (Muslim)
Saracens; Gerard de Mallemort (1227–60), a generous founder of monasteries, who acted as mediator between
Louis IX of France and Henry III, and defended
Gascony against
Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester. During the episcopate of Gerard de Mallemort the old Romanesque church of Saint-André was transformed into a
Gothic cathedral.
Pope Clement V (1305–14) was unfavourable to the claims of Bourges. He was born in
Villandraut near
Bazas, where he had built a beautiful collegiate church, and was Archbishop of Bordeaux (and political adviser to King
Philip the Fair) from 1300-05. When he became pope, in spite of sympathies to France proper, his heart was set upon the formal emancipation of Bordeaux from Bourges. By the late fourteenth century, archbishops such as
Francesco Uguccione, were supporters of the English.
Pierre Berland (1430–57), Archbishop of Bordeaux, was noted for his intelligence and holiness. He founded the
University of Bordeaux and the College of Saint Raphael for poor students. After helping the English to defend Bordeaux against the troops of
Charles VII of France, he later received
John of Orléans, Count of Dunois, into his episcopal city and surrendered it to France. It was during his episcopate that the beautiful campanile known as the Pey Berland Tower was added to the cathedral. The rich and powerful canons of the Churches of Saint-André and Saint-Seurin engaged in frequent and animated conflicts. The artistic investment of the canons of these churches in the thirteenth century is attested by the Gothic portal of Saint-Seurin which is still extant. At the end of the fourteenth century, Vital de Carle established the Hospital of Saint-André, which he placed under the protection of the municipality. It was through the exertions of the Cathedral Chapter of Saint-André that the first city library of Bordeaux was founded around 1402. During the Middle Ages Bordeaux added
Carmelite,
Franciscan, and
Dominican convents, founded respectively in 1217, 1227, and 1230. When, after the
Hundred Years' War, Bordeaux came under French control (1453),
Louis XI flattered its citizens by joining the confraternity of Notre-Dame de Montuzet, a religious association formed of all the mariners of the Gironde by heaping favours on the church of Saint-Michel, the tower of which, built in the period between 1473 and 1492, was higher than the Pey Berland, and by furthering the canonization of its former archbishop, Pierre Berland.
Councils and synods In 1214, an important church council was held in Bordeaux by Cardinal
Robert de Corzon, the Papal Legate in France, against usurers, highwaymen, and heretics. A council in Bordeaux in 1215 arranged a peace between Gaillard d'Autorna and Guillaume Gombadi, abbot of Saint Croix. A diocesan synod, held on 13 April 1255 by Archbishop Gerard de Malemort, legislated mostly on matters of clerical discipline, relics, and taxation. In 1262, Archbishop Pierre de Roncevault held a diocesan synod which produced seven rulings, four of them on dealing with excommunication, and the others on burial (forbidding one parish priest from burying the dead of another parish), confirmation (giving proper notice), and marriage (clandestine marriages bringing excommunication to the ministers, contracting parties, and witnesses). In 1583 Archbishop Antoine le Prévost de Sansac held a provincial council which produced thirty-six canons, similar to those which were being issued in other French ecclesiastical provinces, enacting decrees of the
Council of Trent, especially as relating to the proper operation of seminaries in each diocese. A provincial council was held at Bordeaux by Cardinal de Sourdis in 1624. ==List of Archbishops of Bordeaux==