Before the Roman period the site of
Zaragoza appears to have been occupied by Salduba, a little village of
Edetania, within the boundaries of
Celtiberia.
Roman period (1st to 5th centuries) In 24 BC (727
a.u.c.), Emperor
Octavius Augustus, then in his seventh
consulate, founded the colony of
Caesar Augusta, giving it the Italian franchise and making it the capital of a juridical conventus. Geographer
Pomponius Mela called it "the most illustrious of the inland cities of
Hispania Tarraconensis." The diocese is one of the oldest in Spain, for its origin dates back to the coming of the Apostle
James — a fact of which there had never been any doubt until
Caesar Baronius, influenced by a fabulous story of
García de Loaisa, called it in question.
Pope Urban VIII ordered the old lesson in the
Breviary dealing with this point to be restored. Closely involved with the tradition of St. James's coming to Spain, and of the founding of the church of Zaragoza, are those of
Our Lady of the Pillar and of Sts. Athanasius and Theodore, disciples of St. James, who are supposed to have been the first bishops of Zaragoza. About the year 256 there appears as bishop of this diocese Felix Caesaraugustanus, who defended true discipline in the case of Basilides and Martial, Bishops, respectively, of
Astorga and
Mérida.
St. Valerius, who assisted at the
Council of Iliberis, was bishop from 290 to 315 and, together with his disciple and
deacon St. Vincent, suffered martyrdom in the persecution of Dacian. It is believed that there had been martyrs at Zaragoza in previous persecutions as
Prudentius seems to affirm; but no certain record is to be found of any before this time, when, too, St. Engratia and the "numberless saints" (
santos innumerables), as they are called, gained their crowns. It is said that Dacian, to detect and so make an end of all the faithful of Zaragoza , ordered that liberty to practice their religion should be promised them on condition that they all went out of the city at a certain fixed time and by certain designated gates. As soon as they had thus gone forth, he ordered them to be put to the sword and their corpses burned. Their ashes were mixed with those of criminals, so that no veneration might be paid them. But a shower of rain fell and washed the ashes apart, forming those of the martyrs into certain white masses. These, known as the "holy masses" (
las santas masas) were deposited in the crypt of the church dedicated to St. Engratia, where they are still preserved.
St. Vincent was taken to
Valencia, where he suffered a long and terrible martyrdom. St. Valerius was exiled to a place called Enet, near
Barbastro, where he died, and whence his relics were translated first to Roda, the head and arm being brought thence to Zaragoza when that city had been reconquered. Before the
Moorish invasion three national councils were held at Zaragoza. The
First Council of Saragossa was held in 380, earlier than those of
Toledo, when Valerius II was bishop, and had for its object the extirpation of
Priscillianism.
Visigoth period (5th to 7th centuries) In 452, Zaragoza fell under the power of the
Suevian king
Reciarius; in 466, under that of the
Visigoth king
Euric.
St. Isidore extolled it as one of the best cities of Spain in the Gothic period, and
Pacensis called it "the most ancient and most flourishing." In 542, when the
Franks laid siege to Zaragoza to take vengeance for the wrongs of the Catholic princess,
Clotilde, the besieged went forth in procession and delivered to the enemy, as the price of their raising the siege, a portion of the blood-stained stole of St. Vincent, the deacon. From 592 to 619, the bishop was
Maximus, who assisted at the Councils of
Barcelona and
Egara. Under his episcopate the
Second Council of Zaragoza was held in 592 against
Arianism. Maximus' name, combined with that of the monk Marcus, has been used to form an alleged
Marcus Maximus, the
apocryphal continuator of
Flavius Dexter. The See of Zaragoza was occupied during the Gothic period by two illustrious bishops:
St. Braulius (631–651), who assisted at the
Fourth,
Fifth, and
Sixth Councils of Toledo; and
Taius (Tajón) (651–664), famous for his own writings and for having discovered at
Rome the third part of
St. Gregory's "Morals." The
Third Council of Zaragoza was held in 691 under Bishop Valderedus, and provided that queens, when widowed, should retire to some monastery for their security and for the sake of decorum.
Moorish period (714–1118) During the Moorish occupation, Catholic worship did not cease in this city; the churches of the Virgin and of St. Engratia were maintained, while that of the Saviour was turned into a mosque. Of the bishops of this period the names are preserved of Senior, who visited St. Eulogius at Cordoba (849), and of Eleca, who in 890 was driven from the city by the Muslims and took refuge at
Oviedo. Paternus was sent by king
Sancho the Great to
Cluny to introduce the
Cluniac reform into Spain in the monasteries of
San Juan de la Peña and
San Salvador de Leyre, and was afterwards appointed Bishop of Zaragoza (1040–1077).
Christian period (1118–1318) King
Alfonso I the Battler of
Aragon reconquered the city on 18 December 1118, and named as bishop
Pedro de Librana, whose appointment was confirmed by
Pope Gelasius II. López, in his
Historia de Zaragoza, says that Pedro de Librana first resided at the Church of the Pillar, and on 6 January 1119, purified the great mosque, which he dedicated to the Saviour, and there established his episcopal see. Hence the controversy which began in 1135, in the episcopate of
García Guerra de Majones, between the canons of the Pillar and those of St. Saviour as to the title of cathedral.
Archdiocese of Zaragoza (1318–present) In 1318, the See of Zaragoza was made
metropolitan by a grant of
Pope John XXII (14 June),
Pedro López de Luna being bishop. In the factions which followed upon the death of King
Martin I, Archbishop
García Fernández de Heredia (1383–1411) was assassinated in 1411 by
Antonio de Luna, a partisan of the
Count James II of
Urgell. For more than a century (1458–1577) princes of the royal blood occupied the see: • 1458–1475 : Juan of Aragon, natural son of king
Juan II; • 1478–1520 :
Alonso de Aragón (or Alfonso de Aragón), illegitimate son of
Ferdinand the Catholic and also Archbishop of
Valencia in 1512–1520. • 1520–1530 : Juan of Aragon. • 1539–1577 : Fernando of Aragon, who had been the
Cistercian abbot of
Veruela. On 15 September 1485,
Pedro Arbués,
canon of the Cathedral of Zaragoza and one of the driving forces behind the Tribunal of the
Inquisition, was attacked in the cathedral by some relapsed Jews who were led by Juan de la Abadia and died two days later. In response to the assassination, hundreds were arrested and between one and two hundred were put to death, including the assailants. ==Bishops of Zaragoza==