Ancient Diocese of Dol

[3] In the twelfth century, to support its claim against the Metropolitan of Tours, the Church of Dol produced the names of a long list of archbishops: St. Samson, St. Magloire, St. Budoc, St. Génevée, St. Restoald, St. Armel, St. Jumael, St. Turian.

Among the bishops of Dol are:[3] There was a struggle from the ninth to the eleventh century to free the Church of Brittany from the Metropolitan of Tours.

From a comparison made by Duchesne between the Life of St. Conwoïon, the Indiculus de episcoporum Britonum depositione, and an almost completely restored letter of Pope Leo IV, it would appear that shortly before 850, Nomenoë wishing to be anointed king, and finding opposition among the prelates of Brittany, sought to get rid of them by charging them with simony.

But Nomenoë did depose, and in a brutal manner, the four bishops of Vannes, Aleth, Quimper, and St. Pol de Léon, and made seven dioceses out of their four.

[3] In Autumn 849, the bishops of the four provinces of Tours, Sens, Reims, and Rouen, wrote a letter of reprimand to Nomenoë and threatened him with excommunication.

Salomon, Nomenoë's second successor, requested Pope Benedict IV to regularize the situation of the Breton hierarchy, but was unsuccessful.

He tried again in 865 with Pope Nicholas I, who replied on 26 May 865 that he would not send the pallium to Bishop Festinianus of Dol, unless he could prove that it had been granted to his predecessors.

Dol never had control over Rennes or Nantes, and it was mainly over the new Sees of St. Brieuc and Tréguier that it exercised ascendancy, if not canonical authority.

[18] Finally in a bull of 1 June 1199,[19] Pope Innocent III restored the old order of things, and subordinated anew all the dioceses of Brittany to the metropolitan of Tours;[20] he did not, however, interfere with the diocesan boundaries set up by Nomenoë, which remained in force until the Revolution.

[23] The new pope, Adrian VI, was in Spain, acting as Regent for the Emperor Charles V and Grand Inquisitor, when he was elected on 9 January 1522.

He was still in Rome on 27 July 1524, when Pope Clement VII wrote to the king, saying that he could not confirm the royal nomination of François de Laval, since Adrian VI had appointed Thomas Regis (le Roy).

[29] Following the death of Stephileo, in the consistory of 6 November 1528, Pope Clement appointed King Francis' nominee, François de Laval, to the post of archbishop of Dol, despite his youth and illegitimacy.

The National Constituent Assembly then, on 6 February 1790, instructed its ecclesiastical committee to prepare a plan for the reorganization of the clergy.

[34] The diocese of Dol was an obvious target, given the relatively small population,[35] its scattered territories, and its strongly royalist stance.