The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

§ 3. The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Gaul and Germany.

By taking a single view of the ecclesiastical arrangements of the whole of the Western Empire on this side of the Alps and the Pyrenees, some instructive lessons may be learned. Such a way of looking at the map will bring out more strongly the differences between bishoprics of earlier and later foundation. ♦Gaulish and German dioceses.♦ And, if we take the name of Gaul in the old geographical sense, taking in the German lands west of the Rhine which formed part of the older Empire, we shall find that several ecclesiastical provinces may be called either Gaulish or German. With the boundaries of the French kingdom we have no concern, except so far as the boundary between the Eastern and Western kingdoms of the Franks did to some extent follow ecclesiastical lines. Modern annexations of course have had no regard to them.

♦Province of South Gaul.♦

On first crossing the Alps from Italy, we find the ecclesiastical phænomena of Italy continued in the lands nearest to it. The two provinces of Tarantaise (answering to the civil division of Alpes Penninæ) and Embrun (Alpes Maritimæ) which take in the mountain region between Italy and Gaul, are of small size, though of course in the actual mountain lands the bishoprics are less thick on the ground. ♦Tarantaise.♦ The Tarantasian province contained only three suffragan sees, Sitten, Aosta, and St. John of Maurienne, three bishoprics which now belong to three distinct political powers. ♦Embrun.♦ But in the southern part of the province of Embrun, which reaches to the sea, the bishops’ sees are thick on the ground, just as they are in Italy. ♦Aix and Arles.♦ So they are in the small provinces of Aix (Narbonensis Secunda) and Arles. But, as soon as we get out of Provence into the parts of Gaul which were less thoroughly Romanized, and where cities, and consequently bishoprics, lay less close together, the phænomena of the ecclesiastical map begin to change. ♦Vienne.
Narbonne.♦ The Provençal provinces of Aix and Aries are bounded to the north and west by those of Vienne (which with Arles answers nearly to the civil Viennensis) and Narbonne (answering nearly to Narbonensis Secunda). These provinces are of much greater size, and the suffragan sees are much further apart. ♦Auch.♦ To the west lies Auch, answering to the oldest Aquitaine or Novempopulana, and to the north of these, in the remainder of Gaul, the original provinces are of still greater size. Most of them answer very nearly to the older civil divisions. ♦Bourges, Bourdeaux, Lyons, Rouen, Tours, and Sens.♦ Aquitania Prima is the province of Bourges, Aquitania Secunda that of Bourdeaux. Lugdunensis Prima, Secunda, Tertia, and Quarta, answer to Lyons, Rouen, Tours, and Sens. Of these Lyons, as having been the temporal capital, became the seat of the Primate of all the Gauls. The province of Rouen too answers very nearly to the duchy of which that metropolis became the capital; its Archbishop still bears the title of Primate of Normandy.

These are the oldest ecclesiastical arrangements, closely following the civil divisions of the Empire. These divisions lived through the Teutonic conquests; and, though here and there a see was translated from one city to another, they were not seriously interfered with till the fourteenth century. ♦Foundation of the provinces of Toulouse and Alby, 1322.♦ Pope John the Twenty-second raised the see of Toulouse in the province of Narbonne and that of Alby in the province of Bourges to metropolitan rank, thus forming two new provinces. He also founded new bishoprics in several towns in these two new provinces and in that of Narbonne. ♦Avignon, 1475.♦ In the next century Sixtus the Fourth made the church of Avignon metropolitan. These changes help to give this whole district more of the character of Italy and Provence than originally belonged to it. ♦Paris, 1622.♦ Lastly, in the seventeenth century the province of Sens was also divided, and the church of Paris became metropolitan. Some of these changes show how closely the ecclesiastical divisions followed the oldest civil divisions, and how slowly they were affected by changes in the civil divisions. When Gaul was first mapped out, Tolosa was of less account than Narbo; the Parisii and their city were of less account than the great nation of the Senones. Tolosa became the royal city of the Goth; but it did not rise to the highest ecclesiastical rank till ages after the Gothic kingdom had passed away. Paris, after having been several times a momentary seat of dominion, became the birthplace of the modern French kingdom. But it had been the continuous seat of kings for more than six hundred years before it became the seat of an archbishop.

As we draw nearer to German ground, the ecclesiastical boundaries are found to have been somewhat more strongly affected by political changes. ♦Besançon.♦ The ecclesiastical province of Besançon answers to Maxima Sequanorum; but it is not quite of the same extent; the boundary of the German and Burgundian kingdoms passed through the Roman province: its eastern part is therefore found in a German diocese. ♦Rheims.♦ The province of Rheims answers nearly, but not quite, to Belgica Secunda: for the ecclesiastical province took in some territory to the east of the Scheld. Here again the boundary of the Eastern and Western kingdoms passed through the province. The metropolitan city lay within the region which became the kingdom of France, and it became the ecclesiastical head of the kingdom. Yet one of its suffragan sees, that of Cambray, was a city of the Empire. ♦Trier, 785.♦ The province of Trier took in no part of the Western kingdom; but, besides the old province of Belgica Prima, it stretched away over the German lands even beyond the Rhine. ♦Köln, 785.♦ When the old Gaulish bishoprick of Colonia Agrippina became metropolitan under Charles the Great, its province took in nearly all the old Gaulish province of Germania Secunda; but it too came to stretch beyond the Rhine and beyond the Weser. These two metropolitan sees, Trier and Köln, were old Gaulish bishopricks of the frontier land. ♦Mainz, 747.♦ The see of Mainz has no certain historical being before Boniface in the eighth century. It too was founded on what was geographically Gaulish soil; but the greater part of its vast extent was strictly German. Three only of its suffragans, Worms, Speyer, and Argentoratum or Strassburg, were even geographically Gaulish. No province has had more fluctuating boundaries: the elevation of Köln to metropolitan rank cut it short to the west, while it grew indefinitely to the north, south, and east, as its boundaries were enlarged by conversion and conquest. ♦Prag, 1344.♦ To the east it was cut short in the fourteenth century when the kingdom of Bohemia and its dependencies were formed into the ecclesiastical province of Prag. ♦Bamberg, 1007.♦ The famous bishoprick of Bamberg, locally in the province of Mainz, was from the beginning immediately dependent on the see of Rome.

♦The three ecclesiastical Electors and Arch-chancellors.♦

These three great archbishopricks of the frontier land, all of whose sees were on the Gaulish side of the Rhine, remained distinguished by their temporal rank during the whole life of the German kingdom. All the German prelates became princes; but only these three were Electors. The prelates of these three were the Arch-chancellors of the three Imperial kingdoms, Mainz of Germany, Köln of Italy, Trier of Gaul. But, as the Frankish or German kingdom spread to the north-east, new ecclesiastical provinces were formed. ♦Salzburg, 798.♦ The bishoprick of Salzburg became metropolitan under Charles the Great, with a province stretching away to the East towards his conquests from the Avars. ♦Bremen or Hamburg, 788.♦ The bishoprick of Bremen, another foundation of Charles the Great, was transferred under his son to Hamburg, as a metropolitan see which was designed to be a missionary centre for the Scandinavian nations. ♦1223.♦ After some fluctuations, the see was finally settled at Bremen, as the metropolis of a province, which had now become in no way Scandinavian, but partly Old-Saxon, partly Wendish. ♦Magdeburg, 968.♦ Lastly, Otto the Great founded the metropolitan see of Magdeburg on the Slavonic march. Thus the German kingdom formed six ecclesiastical provinces, all of vast extent as compared with those of Southern Europe, and with their suffragan sees few and far apart. The difference is here clearly marked between the earlier sees which arose from the very beginning in the Roman cities, and the sees of later foundation which were gradually founded as new lands were brought under the dominion of the Empire and the Church. Still the old tradition went on so far that each Bishop had his see in a city, and took his name from that city. Though the German dioceses were of large extent, yet none of the German bishoprics were in strictness territorial.

♦Modern ecclesiastical divisions of Germany and France.♦