Roman Catholic Diocese of Sarlat

[5] These two rulers, who came there on pilgrimage, were called its "founders" in a Bull of Pope Eugene III (1153),[6] no doubt as a compliment rather than a declaration of historical fact.

In 886, the Emperor Charles the Fat, great-grandson of Charlemagne, restored the church of Sarlat and presented it with more relics.

[8] The abbey was visited in the spring of 1147 by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who had been sent to Périgueux on a mission of preaching against heresy by Pope Eugene III.

[9] In 1154, with the accession of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, duchess of Guyenne and countess of Poitou, Sarlat came under the dominion of the House of Plantagenet, though in the 14th century they were again subjects of the French crown.

[12] The first Bishop of Sarlat, Raymond de Rocquecorgne, O.S.B, was confirmed by the Pope in Consistory on 2 July 1318.

The Poor Claires were established in Sarlat by the second Bishop Louis de Salignac on 21 April 1621.

The electors of Dordogne chose Pierre Pontard, curé-archpriest of Sarlat to be their Constitutional Bishop.

He was elected a delegate to the Legislative Assembly in Paris, and on 23 September 1793, when the Convention met, he repudiated his priesthood and declared that he did not believe in and could not make priests himself.