The Diocese of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron, commonly Diocese of Bayonne, (Latin: Dioecesis Baionensis, Lascurrensis et Oloronensis; French: Diocèse de Bayonne, Lescar et Oloron; Basque: Baionako, Leskarreko eta Oloroeko elizbarrutia) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in France. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Bordeaux. The diocese comprises the département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the région of Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Its cathedral, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame in Bayonne is a World Heritage Site. Elsewhere in Aquitaine, the diocese contains two former cathedrals: the Ancienne cathédrale Notre-Dame de the Assumption, in Lescar; and the Ancienne cathédrale Sainte-Marie, in Oloron-Sainte-Marie.
Diocesan borders
The southern boundary of the episcopal see, from the Carolingian period, was marked by a series of crosses high in the Pyrenees, of which the southernmost and most famous was Charles's Cross at Roncesvalles. Compare the discussion of the crux Caroli in Dubarat, Missel, p.xxxv-xxxvi. That a monument had a particular name does not inevitably mean that the monument was erected by the person named. The diocese of Bayonne gained much Spanish territory in 1030 from the Diocese of Pamplona: the four Archpresbyteries of Baztan, Lerin, Bortziria in Navarre and Hondarribia in Guipuzcoa,Cf. a remnant of Charlemagne's conquests beyond the Pyrenees.Cf. Dubarat, Missel, p.xxxii-xxxiv. The list is based on a bull of Pope Paschal II, allegedly of 1106, which has been identified as a forgery.
In 1566, King Philip II of Spain, shocked and angry at the behavior of the Calvinist ruling family of Navarre, petitioned the Pope to save the Catholics on the south side of the Pyrenees by placing them for a time under the government of the bishop of Pamplona. The diocese of Bayonne, therefore, lost territory to the Diocese of Pamplona, by virtue of a papal bull of Pope Pius V of 30 April 1566.J. F. Bladé, "Mémoire...", pp. 445-447. Dubarat, Missel, p.xxxvii-xxxviii, who prints the text of the bull at pp. xxxix-xl.
On 29 November 1801, the Bull Qui Christi Domini, of Pope Pius VII abolished all the dioceses of France and then restored most of them along the lines of the pre-Revolutionary system, but with the boundaries established by the Constitutional Church, which approximated the boundaries of the new French civil departments. The diocese of Bayonne gained territories from the suppressed Diocese of Aire, Diocese of Dax, Diocese of Lescar, Diocese of Lombez, Diocese of Oloron, the Diocese of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, and Diocese of Tarbes, which Pope Pius chose not to revive. Bayonne was a suffragan to the Archdiocese of Toulouse from 1802 to 1822.
After two decades, it was realized that the territory assigned to Bayonne in 1801 was too large for efficient administration by one bishop, and since Catholicism was making progress in Gascony against Protestantism, the diocese of Bayonne was subdivided on 6 October 1822, and it lost territory to the reestablished Diocese of Tarbes. Bayonne was suffragan to the Archdiocese of Auch from 1822 until 2002
On 22 June 1909 the diocese was assigned the titles of the Diocese of Lescar and the Diocese of Oloron, which had been suppressed in 1801. The change was purely honorific and antiquarian.
In the reorganization of the ecclesiastical structure of the Church in France, necessitated by accelerated urbanization and other changes in population, Pope John Paul II, on 8 December 2002, made Bayonne suffragan of the metropolitan archdiocese of Bordeaux.David M. Cheney, Catholic-Hierarchy, Diocese of Bayonne (-Lescar e Oloron). Retrieved: 2016-09-28
History
Local tradition maintains that , the martyr, with whose memory is associated a miraculous fountain, was the first bishop of Bayonne; but Leo was a priest of the third quarter of the ninth century, and his hagiographies insist that he had been Archbishop of Rouen before being sent to Bayonne by Pope Gregory (IV) or a Pope Stephen to evangelize the territory. As Honoré Fisquet puts it succinctly, these lives have nothing really authentic in them.Leo's name does not appear in the list of Archbishops of Rouen in Gallia christiana XI (Paris 1759), pp. 19-26. And cf. : ... il faut avouer que, à part de ces vies qui n'ont rien de fort authentique, aucune catalogue, aucune des anciennes chroniques de Normandie ne justifient qu'il ait occupé le siége métropolitain de Rouen."
No bishop is historically known prior to the eleventh century. Some scholars think, however, that the fact that the town of Lapurdum (which later came to be called Bayonne), was designated as civitas (Roman municipality) in the Treaty of Andelot (587), indicates that the civitas must have had a bishop at that time.J. de Jaurgain, "Ėtude historique et critique sur les origines du royaume de Navarre," Bulletin de la Société des sciences, lettres, et artes de Pau (1896), p. 360. Duvarat, Missel, p. xxv-xxvi. That is just a conjecture. Others associate the foundation of the See of Bayonne with the establishment of the Kingdom of Aquitaine (778).J. F. Bladé, "Mémoire sur l'évêché de Bayonne," That too is a conjecture. Louis Duchesne concludes that, in the present (1910) state of the documentary evidence, no solution presents itself.Duchesne, Fastes II, p. 80 note 3.
Bishop Raymond III de Martres (1122–1125) was given half of the city of Bayonne by William IX, Duke of Aquitaine.David Walker, "Crown and Episcopacy under the Normans and Angevins,"
From 1152 to 1451 Bayonne was ruled by Eleanor of Aquitaine and her descendants, the kings of England. The royal coat of arms is to be found on one of the bosses in the vaulting of the choir of the Cathedral. In 1177, Richard, the son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, made war in Gascony, besieged Dax and its Count, Pierre de Bigorre, and then besieged Bayonne and its Vicomte Arnaud for ten days, and then marched south as far as Port du Cize (Port d'Espagne).J. F. Bladé, "Mémoire...", p. 434.
In April 1344, Bishop Pierre de Saint-Johan, O.P. was appointed by King Edward III of England to head an embassy to arrange a peace between subjects of the King and men under the control of King Alfonso XI of Castile and the Count of Biscay. Sainte-Marthe, Gallia christiana I, p. 1316. On 2 January 1345 he was appointed to head the commission which was to engage in the late-state negotiations for the treaty of marriage of the King's son John with a daughter of King Alfonso.Rymer, p.170. On 14 February 1348 Bishop de Saint-Johan was named one of the arbitrators on claims and complaints between English and Castilian subjects. Also given powers as arbitrators were the sacristan, the major chaplain, and another of the canons of the cathedral, and others.
Cathedral and Chapter
The replacement for the old Romanesque cathedral, whose history is lost, was begun under Arnaud Loup de Bessabat, ca. 1140-1141. In 1199 and again in 1224, fires damaged the fabric, and in 1258 another fire destroyed half of the city of Bayonne and much of the choir of the Cathedral. Reconstruction began almost immediately in the Gothic style. In 1310 yet another fire destroyed most of what still remained of the Romanesque building; the more recent Gothic work remained untouched.Dubarat, Missel, p. cix. Saint-Vanne, pp. 15-16. The original main altar of the Gothic cathedral had on its sides the arms of Cardinal Guillaume Pierre Godin, who died in 1335.Dubarat, Missel, p. cxvii. The new altar, sanctuary and choir were the work of Bishop René-François de Beauvau du Rivau (1701–1707).Dubarat, Missel, p. cvi.
The canons of the cathedral chapter of Bayonne are attested as early as the 12th century, living perhaps under the rule of the canons of Saint Augustine.Dubarat, Missel, p. cxliii. During the Great Schism (1378–1416), the number of canons increased to a total of eighteen: eight of them supporting one side resided in Bayonne, eight others who supported the other pope resided in Basse-Navarre at St-Jean-Pied-de-Porte. The Council of Constance took cognizance of the situation in its 31st Session, and ordered that the number be reduced to the traditional twelve.Dubarat, Missel, p. clxv. In the 17th and 18th centuries there were only the twelve canons.Ritzler-Sefrin, V, p. 112 note 1; VI, p. 113, note 1.
The Chapter of Bayonne had a set of statutes as early as 1322, which are known to have regulated the distributions which came to the canons by virtue of their office.Dubarat, Missel, p. ccxxiii. In 1533 Bishop Étienne de Poncher (1532–1551) published Statutes of the Synod, which included legislation on the practices of the choir, which the canons discussed and accepted, but which had become a dead letter by 1570, due no doubt to the protestantization of the Gascon part of the diocese, and the partition ordered by Pope Pius V in 1566.Dubarat, Missel, p. ccxxi. On 15 August 1676, Bishop Jean d'Olce issued new Statutes for the cathedral chapter on the recommendation of the promoter of the diocese, in order to address various abuses in the carrying out of sacred ceremonies. This enactment lasted well into the 18th century.Dubarat, Missel, p. ccxxii. The cathedral chapter was dissolved in 1790, along with all the other chapters in France.Philippe Bourdin, "Collégiales et chapitres cathédraux au crible de l'opinion et de la Révolution," Annales historiques de la Révolution française no. 331 (janvier/mars 2003), 29-55, at 29-30, 52-53.
By the 12th or 13th century, the diocese north of the Pyrenees had three archdeacons: Labourde, Cize, and Arberoue. South of the Pyrenees was the Archdeaconry of Baztan. All seem to have disappeared by the beginning of the 16th century.Dubarat, Missel, p. xxxvii, cxliii.
The diocese also contained two monasteries, both of Premonstratensians: Leuntium (La Honce), a few miles east of Bayonne; and Urdacium (Ourdace), in Navarre.Sainte-Marthe, Gallia christiana I, pp. 1323-1326. Jean, p. 77. Both were dissolved by the National Assembly in 1790, and their property sold for the benefit of the people. At the beginning of the 18th century there were seven houses of religious in Bayonne, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, the Augustinians, the Capuchins, the Clarisses, and the Recollects.Sainte-Marthe, Gallia christiana I, pp. 1309-1310. The first five named were for men, the last two were convents for women. In 1745 there were also five houses of religious men.Ritzler-Sefrin, VI, p. 113 note 1.
Revolution and Concordat
During the French Revolution the diocese of Bayonne was suppressed by the Legislative Assembly, under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790). Its territory was subsumed into the new diocese, called 'Basses-Pyrenees', which was coterminous with the new civil department of the same name. The dioceses of Oloron and Lescar were also suppressed and their bishops dismissed, and their territories were joined to the former diocese of Oleron, with the seat of the Constitutional Diocese at Oloron. Basses-Pyrenees was made part of the Metropolitanate called the 'Métropole du Sud'.