Archbishop of Sens

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 This article incorporates unedited text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia, which may be out of date, or may reflect the point of view of the Catholic Church as of 1913. It should be edited to reflect broader and more recent perspectives.
(June 2007)

The French Catholic Archdiocese of Sens perhaps became a metropolitan see in the middle of the fifth century. For a period the bishop (archbishop) of Sens held the title primate of the Gauls and Germania.

Until 1622 it numbered seven suffragan bishoprics: diocese of Chartres, diocese of Auxerre, diocese of Meaux, diocese of Paris, diocese of Orléans, diocese of Nevers and diocese of Troyes, hence the acronym CAMPONT. The Diocese of Bethléem at Clamecy was also dependent on the metropolitan see of Sens.

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[edit] History

In 1622, Paris having been raised to a metropolitan see, the Sees of Chartres, Orléans and Meaux were separated from the Archdiocese of Sens. As indemnity the abbey of Mont Saint-Martin in the Diocese of Cambrai was united to the archiepiscopal revenue.

It was suppressed by the Napoleonic Concordat of 1802 which annexed to the Diocese of Troyes the Dioceses of Sens and Auxerre and by a somewhat complex combination gave the title of Bishop of Auxerre to the bishops of Troyes, and the purely honorary title of Archbishop of Sens to the Archbishop of Paris, otherwise deprived of all real jurisdiction over Sens. The Concordat of 1817 reestablished the Archdiocese of Sens and the Diocese of Auxerre, but this arrangement did not last. The law of July, 1821, the pontifical Brief of 4 September 1821, the royal ordinance of 19 October, 1821, suppressed the Diocese of Auxerre and gave to the Archdiocese of Sens as territory all the Department of the Yonne, and as suffragan the Dioceses of Troyes, Nevers and Moulins. A papal Brief of 3 June, 1823, gave to the Archbishop of Sens the title of Bishop of Auxerre. The Archbishop of Sens continued to reside at Sens until the 1920s but is now resident at Auxerre. In 2002 Sens-Auxerre lost its metropolitical functions with the creation of an archbishopric for the Burgundy administrative region at Dijon.

The history of the religious beginnings of the Church of Sens dates from Sts. Savinian and Potentian, and through some connecting legends also has to do with the Dioceses of Chartres, Troyes and Orléans. Gregory of Tours is silent with regard to Sts. Savinian and Potentian, the founders of the See of Sens; the Hieronymian Martyrology, which was revised somewhat before 600 at Auxerre or Autun, ignores them.

The cities of Chartres and Troyes have nothing relative to these saints in their local liturgy prior to the twelfth century, and that of Orléans nothing prior to the fifteenth, which recalls the preaching of Altinus, Eodaldus and Serotinus, the companions of Sts. Savinian and Potentian. Previous to the ninth century there was in the cemetery near the monastery of Pierre le Vif at Sens a group of tombs among which have been recognized those of the first bishops of Sens. In 847 the solemn transfer of their bodies to the church of St-Pierre le Vif originated great popular devotion towards Sts. Savinian and Potentian. In 848 Wandelbert of Prüm named them the first patrons of the church of Sens. Ado, in his martyrology published shortly afterwards, speaks of them as envoys of the Apostles and as martyrs. The Martyrology of Usuardus, about 875, indicates them as envoys of the "Roman pontiff" and as martyrs. In the middle of the tenth century the relics of these two saints were hidden in a subterranean vault of the Abbey of St-Pierre le Vif to escape the pillage of the Hungarians, but in 1031 they were placed in a beautiful reliquary executed by the monk Odoranne. This monk, in a chronicle published about 1045, speaks of Altinus, Eodaldus, and Serotinus as the apostolic companions of Savinian and Potentian, but does not regard them as having been sent by Saint Peter.

In a document which, according to the Abbé Bouvier, dates from the end of the sixth century or the beginning of the seventh, but according to Louis Duchesne who calls the Gerbertine legend was written in 1046 and 1079 under the inspiration of Gerbert, Abbot of St-Pierre le Vif, is developed for the first time a vast legend which traces to Sts. Savinian and Potentian and their companions the evangelization of the churches of Orléans, Chartres and Troyes. After some uncertainties and hesitations this legend became definitely fixed in the chronicle of Clarius, compiled about 1120. It is impossible that the Christian Faith was preached at Sens in the second century, but we know from Sidonius Apollinaris that in 475 the Church of Sens had its thirteenth bishop, and the list of bishops does not permit the supposition that the episcopal see existed prior to the second half of the third century or the beginning of the fourth.

[edit] Bishops and archbishops

[edit] To 1000

Among the bishops of Sens in the fourth century may be mentioned:

In the fifth century:

  • St. Ambrose (d. about 460)
  • St. Agroecius (Agrice), bishop about 475
  • St. Heraclius (487-515), founder of the monastery of St. John the Evangelist at Sens.

In the sixth century:

  • St. Paul (515-525)
  • St. Leo (530-541), who sent St. Aspais to evangelize Melun
  • St. Arthemius, present at the councils of 581 and 585, who admitted to public penance the Spaniard, St. Bond, and of, a criminal made a holy hermit.

In the seventh century:

  • St. Lupus (Lou, or Leu), b. about 573, bishop approximately between 609 and 623, son of Blessed Betto, of the royal house of Burgundy, and of St Austregilde, founder of the monastery of Ste-Colombe and perhaps also of the monastery of Ferrières in the Gatinais, which some historians, trusting to an apocryphal charter, believed to have been founded under Clovis; he secured from the king authorization to coin money in his diocese
  • St. Annobertus (about 639)
  • St. Gondelbertus (about 642-643), whose episcopate is only proved by the traditions of Senones Abbey, dating from the eleventh century;
  • St. Arnoul (654-7)
  • St. Emmon (658-75), who about the end of 668 received the monk Hadrian, sent to England with Archbishop Theodore
  • perhaps St. Amé (about 676), exiled to Péronne by Ebroin, and whose name is suppressed by Duchesne as having been interpolated in the episcopal lists in the tenth century
  • St. Vulfran (692-695), a monk of Fontenelle, who soon left the See of Sens to evangelize Frisia and died at Fontenelle before 704; St. Gerie, bishop about 696. In the eighth century
  • St. Ebbo, at first Abbot of St-Pierre le Vif, bishop before 711, and who in 731 placed himself at the head of his people to compel the Saracens to raise the siege of Sens
  • his successor St. Merulf.

In the ninth century great bishops occupied the See of Sens:

  • Magnus, former court chaplain of Charlemagne, bishop before 802, author of a sort of hand book of legislation of which he made use when he journeyed as missus dominicus, or royal agent for Charlemagne, died after 817
  • Jeremias, ambassador at Rome of Louis the Pious in the affair of the Iconoclasts, died in 828
  • St. Alderic (829-836), former Abbot of Ferrières, and consecrated Abbot of St. Maur des Fosses at Paris in 832
  • Vénilon (837-865) anointed Charles the Bald, 6 June 843, in the cathedral of Orléans, to the detriment of the privileges of the archbishopric of Reims; his chorepiscopus or auxiliary bishop, was Andrade, author of numerous theological writings, among others of the poem "De Fonte Vitae" dedicated to Hincmar, and of the "Book of Revelations", by which he sought to put an end to the divisions between the sons of Louis the Pious. In 859 Charles the Bald accused Vénilon before the Council of Savonnières of having betrayed him; the matter righted itself, but opinion continued to hold Vénilon guilty and the name of the traitor Ganelon, which occurs in the Chanson de Roland is but a popular corruption of the name Vénilon.
  • Ansegisus (871-883), at the death of Emperor Louis II, negotiated at Rome for Charles the Bald and brought thence the letter of Pope John VIII inviting Charles to come and receive the imperial crown. He himself was named by John VIII primate of the Gauls and Germania and vicar of the Holy See for France and Germany, and at the Council of Ponthion was solemnly installed above the other metropolitans despite the opposition of Hincmar; in 880 he anointed Louis the Younger and Carloman in the abbey of Ferrières. It was doubtless in the time of archbishop Ansegisus, while the See of Sens exercised a real primacy, that a cleric of his church compiled the historical work known as the "Ecclesiastical Annals of Sens" or "Gestes des Archevêques de Sens", an attempt to write the history of the first two French dynasties.

Walter, Archbishop of Sens (Vaulter) (887-923) anointed Eudes in 888, Robert I in July 922, and Rudolph of France on 13 July 923 in the Church of St-Médard at Soissons; he doubtlessly inherited from his uncle Vaultier, Bishop of Orléans, a superb Sacramentary composed between 855 and 873 for the Abbey of St-Amand at Puelle. This Sacramentary, which he gave to the church of Sens, forms one of the most curious monuments of Carlovingian art and is now in the library of Stockholm.

Among the bishops of Sens may also be mentioned: St. Anastasius (967-976 Sevinus (976-999), who presided at the Council of St-Basle and brought upon himself the disfavour of Hugh Capet by his opposition to the deposition of Arnoul.

[edit] 1000-1500

The second half of the eleventh century was fatal to the Diocese of Sens. Under the episcopate of Richerius (1062-96), Pope Urban II withdrew primatial authority from the See of Sens to confer it on the archbishopric of Lyon, and Richerius died without having accepted this decision; his successor Daimbert (1098-1122) was consecrated at Rome in March, 1098, only after having given assurance that he recognized the primacy of Lyons. Bishop Henri Sanglier (1122-42) caused the condemnation by a council in 1140 of certain propositions of Abelard.

The see regained great prestige under Hugues de Toucy (1142-68), who at Orléans in 1152 crowned Constance, wife of King Louis VII, despite the protests of the Archbishop of Reims, and under whose episcopate Pope Alexander III, driven from Rome, installed the pontifical Court at Sens for eighteen months after having taken the advice of the bishops.

Among later bishops of Sens were:

  • Guillaume aux Blanches Mains (1168-76), son of Thibaud II, Count of Champagne, uncle of king Philip Augustus, and first cousin of Henry II of France, who in 1172 in the name of Pope Alexander III placed the Kingdom of England under an interdict and in 1176 became Archbishop of Reims
  • Michael of Corbeil (1194-99), who combated the Manichaean sect of "Publicans"
  • Peter of Corbeil (1200-22), who had been professor of theology of Pope Innocent III
  • Philippe de Marigny
  • William of Paris who was also Inquisitor of France
  • Pierre Roger (1329-30), later Clement VI
  • Guillaume de Brosse (1330-38), who erected at one of the doorways of the cathedral of Sens an equestrian statue of Philip VI of Valois to perpetuate the remembrance of the victory won by the clergy over the pretentions of the legist Pierre de Cugnières
  • Guillaume de Melun (1344-75), who together with King John II was taken prisoner by the English at the battle of Poitiers in 1356
  • Guy de Roye (1385-90)
  • Henri de Savoisy (1418-22), who at Troyes in 1420 blessed the marriage of Henry V of England with Catherine of France
  • Etienne Tristan de Salazar (1475-1519), who concluded the first treaty of alliance between France and the Swiss

[edit] 1500 onwards

  • Étienne de Poncher 1519-1524
  • Antoine Duprat 1525-35, made cardinal in 1527
  • Louis de Bourbon-Vendôme (1535-57), cardinal, from 1517
  • Jean Bertrandi (1557-60), cardinal in 1559
  • Louis de Lorraine (1560-62), Cardinal de Guise from 1553
  • Nicolas de Pellevé (1562-92), cardinal from 1570
  • Renaud de Beaune, 1595, lacked papal approval
  • Cardinal du Perron (1606-18)
  • Jean Davy du Perron 1618-1621
  • Octave de Saint-Lary de Bellegarde 1621-1646
  • Louis-Henri de Pardaillan de Gondrin 1646-1674
  • Jean de Montpezat de Carbon (1674-1685)
  • Hardouin Fortin de la Hoguette (1685-1715)
  • Denis-François le Bouthillier de Chavigny (1716-1730)
  • Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy (1730-1753), first biographer of Marie Alacoque and member of the French Academy
  • Paul d'Albert de Luynes (1753-1788), Cardinal de Luynes after 1756 and member of the French Academy
  • Loménie de Brienne (1788-93), minister of Louis XVI, cardinal in 1788, and who during the French Revolution swore to the civil constitution of the clergy but refused to consecrate the first constitutional bishops, returned to the pope his cardinal's hat, refused to become constitutional Bishop of Toulouse, was twice imprisoned by the Jacobins of Sens and died in prison of apoplexy.
  • Anne, Cardinal de la Fare (1821-29)
  • Victor-Felix Bernadou (1867-1891)
  • Pierre-Marie-Etienne-Gustave Ardin (1892-1911)
  • Jean-Victor-Emile Chesnelong (1912-1931)
  • Maurice Feltin (1932-1935) (also Archbishop of Bordeaux)
  • Frédéric Edouard Camille Lamy (1936-1962)
  • René-Louis-Marie Stourm (1962-1977)
  • Eugène-Marie Ernoult (1977-1990)
  • Gérard Denis Auguste Defois (1990-1995) (also Archbishop of Reims)
  • Georges Edmond Robert Gilson (1996-2004)
  • Yves François Patenôtre (2004-present)

[edit] Councils of Sens

A number of councils were held at Sens. The first, about 600 or 601, in conformity with the instructions of pope St. Gregory the Great, especially advised warfare against simony. St. Columbanus refused to attend it because the question of the date of Easter, which was to be dealt with, was dividing Franks and Bretons.

A series of councils, most of them concerned with the privileges of the Abbey of St. Pierre-le-Vif, were held in 657, 669 or 670, 846, 850, 852, 853, 862, 980, 986, 996, 1048, 1071 and 1080.

The council of 1140, according to the terms of the letter issued by Archbishop Henri Sanglier, seems to have had no object but to impart solemnity to the exposition of the relics with which he enriched the cathedral; but the chief work of this council, which included representatives from the Ecclesiastical provinces of Sens and Reims, and at which St. Bernard assisted, was the condemnation of Abelard's doctrine. The latter having declared that he appealed from the council to Rome, the bishops of both provinces insisted in two letters to Innocent II that the condemnation be confirmed. Dr. Martin Deutsch placed this council in 1141, but the Abbé Vacandard proved by the letter from Peter the Venerable to Héloïse, the "Continuatio Praemonstratensis", the "Continuatio Valcellensis" and the list of the priors of Clairvaux, that Baronius' date 1140 is correct.

The council of 1198 was concerned with the Manichaean sect of Poplicani spread throughout the Nivernais region, to which the dean of Nevers and the Abbot of St-Martin de Nevers were said to have belonged. After the council Pope Innocent III charged his legate Peter of Capua and Eudes de Sully, Bishop of Paris, with an investigation.

Councils were also held in 1216, 1224 (for the condemnation of a book by Scotus Eriugena), 1239, 1252, 1253, 1269, 1280, 1315, 1320, 1460, 1485; most of them for disciplinary measures.

This article incorporates text from the entry Sens in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

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