The Roman Catholic Diocese of Angoulême is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic church in France. Originally erected in the 3rd century, the episcopal see is the Angoulême Cathedral. Comprising the département of the Charente, the diocese has always been suffragan to the Archbishopric of Bordeaux, under the old régime as well as under the Concordat.
Its first bishop was Ausonius, a disciple, it is said, of St. Martial, concerning whom we have two historical authorities: St. Gregory of Tours, who held that St. Martial preached the gospel in Limoges about the year 250, and the Limousin traditions, transmitted or invented by the chronicler Adhémar de Chabannes, who maintained that St. Martial was the immediate disciple of St. Peter. According to the latter opinion St. Ausonius was a bishop of the first century; according to the former, of the third century.
St. Salvius, honoured as a martyr at Valenciennes, whom the Gallia Christiana makes a Bishop of Angoulême, was undoubtedly only a missionary bishop of the eighth century. In the list of the Bishops of Angoulême is found the name of the poet Octavien de St. Gelais (1494–1502).
The religious monuments of the province of Angoumois are remarkable for their admirable Romano-Byzantine façades. The most beautiful of them is St. Peter's Cathedral at Angoulême. The memory of a wealthy and famous Augustinian abbey, founded in 1122, is kept alive by its ruins at Couronne, near Angoulême.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.