Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bordeaux

Archdiocese in France

The Archdiocese of Bordeaux (–Bazas) (Latin: Archidioecesis Burdigalensis (–Bazensis); French: Archidiocèse de Bordeaux (–Bazas); Occitan: Archidiocèsi de Bordèu (–Vasats)) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. The episcopal see is Bordeaux, Aquitaine. It was established under the Concordat of 1802 by combining the ancient Diocese of Bordeaux (diminished by the cession of part to the Bishopric of Aire) with the greater part of the suppressed Diocese of Bazas. The Archdiocese of Bordeaux is a metropolitan see, with four suffragan dioceses in its ecclesiastical province: Dioceses of Agen, Aire and Dax, Bayonne, and Périgueux.

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of Angoulême, Poitiers and La Rochelle, the see of Bordeaux received in 1822, as additional suffragans, those of Agen, withdrawn from the metropolitan of Toulouse, and the newly re established Périgueux and Luçon.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.

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.

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.

Lainé, Françoise (ed.) (2012): Fasti Ecclesiae Gallicanae. Répertoire prosopographique des évêques, dignitaires et chanoines des diocèses de France de 1200 à 1500. XIII. Diocèse de Bordeaux. Turnhout, Brepols