1.
Pope Urban IV
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Pope Urban IV, born Jacques Pantaléon, was Pope from 29 August 1261 to his death in 1264. He was not a cardinal, only a few popes since his time have not been Cardinals, including Gregory X, Urban V, Urban IV was the son of a cobbler of Troyes, France. He studied theology and common law in Paris and was appointed a canon of Laon, at the First Council of Lyon he attracted the attention of Pope Innocent IV, who sent him on two missions in Germany. One of the missions was to negotiate the Treaty of Christburg between the pagan Prussians and the Teutonic Knights and he became Bishop of Verdun in 1253. In 1255, Pope Alexander IV made him Patriarch of Jerusalem and he had returned from Jerusalem, which was in dire straits, and was at Viterbo seeking help for the oppressed Christians in the East when Alexander IV died. After a three-month vacancy, Pantaléon was chosen by the eight cardinals of the Sacred College to succeed him in an election that concluded on 29 August 1261. He chose the name of Urban IV. Urban IV endeavoured without success to stir up a crusade to restore the Latin Empire, Urbain initiated construction of the Basilica of St. Urbain, Troyes, in 1262. The festival of Corpus Christi was instituted by Urban IV on August 11,1264, Urban asked Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican theologian, to write the texts for the Mass and Office of the feast. This included such famous hymns as the Pange lingua, Tantum ergo, frederick IIs heir Manfred was immersed in these struggles. Urban IVs military captain was the condottiere Azzo dEste, nominally at the head of a league of cities that included Mantua. Charles was Count of Provence by right of his wife, maintaining a base for projecting what would be an expensive Italian war. For two years Urban IV negotiated with Manfred regarding whether Manfred would aid the Latins in regaining Constantinople in return for confirmation of the Hohenstaufen rights in the realm. Before the arrival in Italy of his candidate Charles, Urban IV died at Perugia on 2 October 1264 and his successor was Pope Clement IV, who immediately took up the papal side of the arrangement. Tannhäuser, a prominent German Minnesänger and poet, was a contemporary of Pope Urban IV—the pope died in 1264, and the Minnesänger died shortly after 1265. Two centuries later, the became a major character in a legend which grew up about the Minnesänger. The legendary account makes Tannhäuser a knight and poet who found the Venusberg, the home of Venus. After leaving the Venusberg, Tannhäuser is filled with remorse and travels to Rome to ask Pope Urban IV if it is possible to be absolved of his sins, Urban replies that forgiveness is as impossible as it would be for his papal staff to send forth green leaves
2.
Pope Gregory X
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Pope Gregory X, born Teobaldo Visconti, was Pope from 1 September 1271 to his death in 1276 and was a member of the Secular Franciscan Order. He was elected at the conclusion of an election that ran from 1268 to 1271. He convened the Second Council of Lyons and also new regulations in regards to papal conclaves. Though briefly annulled by Pope Adrian V and Pope John XXI, these remained in force until the 20th century. Pope Clement XI beatified him in 1713 after the confirmation of his cultus, Teobaldo Visconti, a member of the House of Visconti, was born in Piacenza around 1210. It is said that he began his career by attaching himself to the household of the Cistercian Cardinal Giacomo de Pecorari, Bishop of Palestrina and he was attracted by the reputation of holiness which the Cardinal enjoyed, he had been elected abbot of the monastery of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne. Teobaldo became the Cardinals Oeconomus or Majordomo, and was therefore in constant attendance, the Cardinal was Legate of Pope Gregory IX in Tuscany in 1235, in Lombardy in 1236-1237, and in Provence, France and Germany in 1239-1241. It was probably during the assignment in Provence that Teobaldo became known to important French clergy and he was already Canon of the Basilica of S. Antonino in Piacenza when he returned to Piacenza on business of the Cardinal in 1239. He then returned to the Cardinal, whose new assignment in France was actually to preach a crusade against Frederick II Augustus, the Hohenstaufen Emperor, early in 1239, the Pope had again excommunicated the Emperor. Each had demanded an Ecumenical Council to settle their differences, the Pope was willing, but he planned that the council would meet under his auspices and in his territory. He would also bring to Rome all of the enemies of Frederick Hohenstaufen. It was at point in 1240 that Teobaldo also became a Canon of the Cathedral of Lyons. Pope Gregorys ecumenical council never took place, and he died on 22 August 1241, the search for a successor to Gregory IX took more than two months. The new Pope, Celestine IV, who was old and ill, survived his election by only 17 days, the second electoral assembly of 1241 did not take place for some time, however. Only a half-dozen of the 12 cardinals remained in the city and it was not until June 1243 that all the Cardinals, assembled at Anagni and not in Rome, elected Cardinal Sinibaldo Fieschi of Genoa as Pope Innocent IV. In 1243, when the Bishop of Piacenza died, Innocent IV offered the position to Archdeacon Teobaldo, Cardinal Giacomo, however, died in Rome on 25 June 1244. Upon the death of his patron and spiritual model, Teobaldo decided not to any longer in the Curia, planning to travel to Paris. When he reached Lyons, however, he was received by the Archbishop-elect, Philippe, Teobaldo initially refused, but the Archbishop insisted and finally Teobaldo accepted the position
3.
Saint-Gilles-du-Gard
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Saint-Gilles or Saint-Gilles-du-Gard is a commune in the Gard department in southern France. It is the second most populous commune in the Nîmes metropolitan area, Saint-Gilles is located at the northern edge of the Petite Camargue, between Arles and Nîmes. With a land area of 153.73 km², it is large by continental French standards. The Benedictine abbey of Saint-Gilles was founded during the seventh century traditionally by the hermit Saint Giles, the former abbey church was listed in 1998 among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France. The abbey churchs west portal is among the most beautiful of the great Romanesque portals, the church has three naves and a famed spiral staircase of cantilevered stone steps. During the French Wars of Religion the Protestants fortified themselves within the abbey, the shrine of Saint Gilles, located in the crypt of the church, is the subject of pilgrimage in particular by women wishing to become pregnant or dealing with infertility. Saint-Gilles was the birthplace of Guy Foulques, Pope Clement IV, Saint-Gilles is more recently the birthplace of the author Georges-Jean Arnaud. The Nîmes-Alès-Camargue-Cévennes Airport, sometimes called Garons Airport, is located on the territory of the commune, communes of the Gard department Costières de Nîmes AOC INSEE Whitney S. Stoddard,1973. Gilles-du-Gard Regordane Info - The independent portal for The Regordane Way or St Gilles Trail The Regordane finishes in Saint-Gilles
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Languedoc
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Languedoc is a former province of France. Its territory is now contained in the region of Occitanie in the south of France. It had an area of approximately 27,376 square kilometers, the traditional provinces of the kingdom of France were not formally defined. A province was simply a territory of common traditions and customs, today, when people refer to the old provinces of France, they actually refer to the gouvernements as they existed in 1789. Gouvernements were military regions established in the middle of the 16th century, however, in some cases, small provinces had been merged with a large one into a single gouvernement, so gouvernements are not exactly the same as the traditional provinces. Historically, the region was called the county of Toulouse, a county independent from the kings of France. The county of Toulouse was made up of what would later be called Languedoc, but it included the province of Quercy. After the French conquest the entire county was dismantled, the part of it being now called Languedoc. The gouvernement of Languedoc was created in the middle of the 16th century, in addition to Languedoc proper, it also included the three small provinces of Gévaudan, Velay, and Vivarais, these three provinces being to the northeast of Languedoc. Some people also consider that the region around Albi was a province, called Albigeois. This decision was intentional, to avoid reviving the independently spirited county of Toulouse. In the rest of the article, Languedoc refers to the territory of this gouvernement of Languedoc, the governors of Languedoc resided in Pézenas, on the Mediterranean coast, away from Toulouse but close to Montpellier. The kings of France became fearful of the power of the governors, thus the gouvernements became hollow structures, but they still carried a sense of the old provinces, and so their names and limits have remained popular until today. The generality of Toulouse is also referred to as Upper Languedoc, while the generality of Montpellier, the intendants of Languedoc resided in Montpellier, and they had a sub-delegate in Toulouse. Montpellier was chosen on purpose to diminish the power of Toulouse, whose parlement was very influential, the intendants replaced the governors as administrators of Languedoc, but appointed and dismissed at will by the king, they were no threat to the central state in Versailles. By 1789 they were the most important element of the administration of the kingdom. For judicial and legislative matters, Languedoc was overseen by the Parlement of Toulouse and it was the first parlement created outside of Paris by the kings of France in order to be the equivalent of the Parlement of Paris in the far-away southern territories of the kingdom. The Parlement of Toulouse was the court of justice for this vast area of France
5.
France in the Middle Ages
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From the 13th century on, the state slowly regained control of a number of these lost powers. The crises of the 13th and 14th centuries led to the convening of an assembly, the Estates General. From the Middle Ages onward, French rulers believed their kingdoms had natural borders, the Pyrenees, the Alps and this was used as a pretext for an aggressive policy and repeated invasions. The belief, however, had little basis in reality for not all of territories were part of the Kingdom. France had important rivers that were used as waterways, the Loire, the Rhone and these rivers were settled earlier than the rest and important cities were founded on their banks but they were separated by large forests, marsh, and other rough terrains. Before the Romans conquered Gaul, the Gauls lived in villages organised in wider tribes, the Romans referred to the smallest of these groups as pagi and the widest ones as civitates. These pagi and civitates were often taken as a basis for the imperial administration and these religious provinces would survive until the French revolution. Discussion of the size of France in the Middle Ages is complicated by distinctions between lands personally held by the king and lands held in homage by another lord, the domaine royal of the Capetians was limited to the regions around Paris, Bourges and Sens. The great majority of French territory was part of Aquitaine, the Duchy of Normandy, the Duchy of Brittany, the Comté of Champagne, the Duchy of Burgundy, and other territories. Philip II Augustus undertook a massive French expansion in the 13th century, only in the 15th century would Charles VII and Louis XI gain control of most of modern-day France. The weather in France and Europe in the Middle Ages was significantly milder than during the preceding or following it. Historians refer to this as the Medieval Warm Period, lasting from about the 10th century to about the 14th century, part of the French population growth in this period is directly linked to this temperate weather and its effect on crops and livestock. At the end of the Middle Ages, France was the most populous region in Europe—having overtaken Spain, in the 14th century, before the arrival of the Black Death, the total population of the area covered by modern-day France has been estimated at around 17 million. The population of Paris is controversial, josiah Russell argued for about 80,000 in the early 14th century, although he noted that some other scholars suggested 200,000. The higher count would make it by far the largest city in western Europe, the Black Death killed an estimated one-third of the population from its appearance in 1348. The concurrent Hundred Years War slowed recovery and it would be the mid-16th century before the population recovered to mid-fourteenth century levels. The vast majority of the population spoke a variety of vernacular languages derived from vulgar Latin. Modern linguists typically add a group within France around Lyon
6.
Viterbo
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See also Viterbo, Texas and Viterbo University. For the municipality in Colombia, see Viterbo, Caldas Viterbo listen is an ancient city and comune in the Lazio region of central Italy and it conquered and absorbed the neighboring town of Ferento in its early history. It is approximately 80 kilometres north of GRA on the Via Cassia, the historic center of the city is surrounded by medieval walls, still intact, built during the 11th and 12th centuries. Entrance to the center of the city is through ancient gates. Apart from agriculture, the resources of Viterbos area are pottery, marble. The town is home to the Italian gold reserves, an important Academy of Fine Arts, the University of Tuscia, and it is located in a wide thermal area, attracting many tourists from the whole of central Italy. The first report of the new city dates to the eighth century CE and it was fortified in 773 by the Lombard King Desiderius in his vain attempt to conquer Rome. In 1164, Frederick Barbarossa made Viterbo the seat of his antipope Paschal III, three years later he gave it the title of city and used its militias against Rome. In 1172, Viterbo started its expansion, destroying the old city of Ferento, in this age it was a rich and prosperous comune, one of the most important of Central Italy, with a population of almost 60,000. In 1207, Pope Innocent III held a council in the cathedral, in 1210, however, Viterbo managed to defeat Emperor Otto IV and was again at war against Rome. In the thirteenth century it was ruled alternately by the tyrants of the Gatti, Frederick II drew Viterbo to the Ghibelline side in 1240, but when the citizens expelled his turbulent German troops in 1243 he returned and besieged the city, but in vain. From that point Viterbo was always a loyal Guelph city, between 1257 and 1261 it was the seat of Pope Alexander IV, who also died there. His successor Urban IV was elected in Viterbo, in 1266–1268, Clement IV chose Viterbo as the base of his ruthless fight against the Hohenstaufen. Here, from the loggia of the palace, he excommunicated the army of Conradin of Swabia which was passing on the Via Cassia. Other popes elected in Viterbo were Gregory X and John XXI, Nicholas III and they were subsequently excommunicated, and the popes avoided Viterbo for 86 years. Without the popes, the city fell into the hands of the Di Vicos, in the fourteenth century, Giovanni di Vico had created a seignory extending to Civitavecchia, Tarquinia, Bolsena, Orvieto, Todi, Narni and Amelia. His dominion was crushed by Cardinal Gil de Albornoz in 1354, sent by the Avignonese popes to recover the Papal States, but Pope Boniface IXs troops drove him away in 1396 and established a firm papal suzerainty over the city. The last Di Vico to hold power in Viterbo was Giacomo, thenceforth Viterbo became a city of secondary importance, following the vicissitudes of the Papal States
7.
Papal States
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The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the states of Italy from roughly the 8th century until the Italian Peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. At their zenith, they covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Marche, Umbria and Romagna and these holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. By 1861, much of the Papal States territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy, only Lazio, including Rome, remained under the Popes temporal control. In 1870, the pope lost Lazio and Rome and had no physical territory at all, Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini ended the crisis between unified Italy and the Vatican by signing the Lateran Treaty, granting the Vatican City State sovereignty. The Papal States were also known as the Papal State, the territories were also referred to variously as the State of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, or the Roman States. For its first 300 years the Catholic Church was persecuted and unrecognized and this system began to change during the reign of the emperor Constantine I, who made Christianity legal within the Roman Empire, and restoring to it any properties that had been confiscated. The Lateran Palace was the first significant new donation to the Church, other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. But the Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, the seeds of the Papal States as a sovereign political entity were planted in the 6th century. Beginning In 535, the Byzantine Empire, under emperor Justinian I, launched a reconquest of Italy that took decades and devastated Italys political, just as these wars wound down, the Lombards entered the peninsula from the north and conquered much of the countryside. While the popes remained Byzantine subjects, in practice the Duchy of Rome, nevertheless, the pope and the exarch still worked together to control the rising power of the Lombards in Italy. As Byzantine power weakened, though, the took a ever larger role in defending Rome from the Lombards. In practice, the papal efforts served to focus Lombard aggrandizement on the exarch, a climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries embodied in the Lombard king Liutprands Donation of Sutri to Pope Gregory II. When the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell to the Lombards in 751, the popes renewed earlier attempts to secure the support of the Franks. In 751, Pope Zachary had Pepin the Younger crowned king in place of the powerless Merovingian figurehead king Childeric III, zacharys successor, Pope Stephen II, later granted Pepin the title Patrician of the Romans. Pepin led a Frankish army into Italy in 754 and 756, Pepin defeated the Lombards – taking control of northern Italy – and made a gift of the properties formerly constituting the Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope. The cooperation between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty climaxed in 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor, the precise nature of the relationship between the popes and emperors – and between the Papal States and the Empire – is disputed. Events in the 9th century postponed the conflict, the Holy Roman Empire in its Frankish form collapsed as it was subdivided among Charlemagnes grandchildren
8.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
9.
Roman Catholic Diocese of Le Puy-en-Velay
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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Le Puy-en-Velay is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the department of Haute-Loire, in the Region of Auvergne. Currently the diocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Clermont, the current bishop, as of April 2015, is Bishop Luc Crépy. The territory of the old Diocese of Le Puy, suppressed by the Concordat of 1801, was united with the Diocese of Saint-Flour and became a diocese again in 1823. The district of Brioude, which had belonged to the diocese of Saint-Flour under the old regime, was included in the new Diocese of Le Puy. A legend of St. Martial, he caused an altar to the Blessed Virgin to be erected on Mont Anis, after St. George, certain local traditions of very late origin point to Sts. Macarius, Marcellinus, Roricius, Eusebius, Paulianus, and Vosy as bishops of Le Puy, St. Vosy was apprised in a vision that the angels themselves had dedicated the cathedral to the Blessed Virgin, whence the epithet Angelic given to the cathedral of Le Puy. It is impossible to say whether this St. Evodius is the same who signed the decrees of the Council of Valence in 374. The first of these, Scutarius, the architect of the first cathedral, dates, if we may trust the inscription which bears his name. Legend traces the origin of the pilgrimage of Le Puy to an apparition of the Blessed Virgin to a widow whom St. Martial had converted. No French pilgrimage was more frequented in the Middle Ages, Charles the Bald visited Le Puy in 877, Eudes of France in 892, Robert I of France in 1029, Philip Augustus in 1183. Louis IX met the King of Aragon there in 1245, and in 1254 passing through Le Puy on his return from Palestine, louis XI made the pilgrimage in 1436 and 1475, and in 1476 halted three leagues from the city and went to the cathedral barefooted. Charles VIII visited it in 1495, Francis I of France in 1533. St. Mayeul, St. Odilon, St. Robert, St. Hugh of Grenoble, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominic, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. John Francis Regis were pilgrims to Le Puy. The Church of Le Puy received, on account of its dignity and fame, nowhere, he said in his Bull, does the Blessed Virgin receive a more special and more filial worship. The first jubilee historically known took place in 1407, and in 1418 the chronicles mention a Bull of Pope Martin V prolonging the duration of the jubilee. During the Middle Ages, everyone who had made the pilgrimage to Le Puy had the privilege of making a will in extremis with only two instead of seven. Honoured with such prerogatives, the Church of Le Puy assumed a sort of primacy in respect to most of the Churches of France, and even of Christendom
10.
Ancient Diocese of Narbonne
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The former Catholic diocese of Narbonne existed from early Christian times until the French Revolution. It was an archdiocese, with its see at Narbonne, from the year 445 and it was a part of the Métropole du Sud, which included ten départements. The territory of the diocese of Narbonne was merged under the Concordat of 1801 into the diocese of Carcassonne. After the Restoration of the Bourbons following Napoleons defeat at Waterloo, after nearly a century, a new metropolitan see was created for the Languedoc region, with the elevation of the bishopric of Montpellier to the rank of Metropolitan Archbishop on 8 December 2002. Toulouse no longer carries the title Toulouse-Narbonne, Catholic Church in France Gams, Pius Bonifatius. Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae, quotquot innotuerunt a beato Petro apostolo, ratisbon, Typis et Sumptibus Georgii Josephi Manz. pp. 582–584. Hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi V. Patavii, Messagero di S. Antonio, hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi VI. Gallia Christiana, In Provincias Ecclesiasticas Distributa, De provincia Narbonensi, vaissete, J. Histoire generale de Languedoc. Fastes épiscopaux de lancienne Gaule, I, notes historiques et archéologiques sur la cathédrale, le cloitre et le palais archiépiscopal de Narbonne 13e-16e siècles
