Christianity was preached in Valence c. 200, by disciples of Irenaeus of Lyon, but the bishopric is first attested in 347, when Bishop Aemilianus attended the council of Sardica.

[3]), and, on 5 August 1095, during his visit to France to rouse up the aristocracy for a Crusade to liberate the Holy Land, Pope Urban II rededicated the cathedral to the Virgin Mary and the martyrs Cornelius and Cyprian.

[5] The cathedral was administered by a corporation called the Chapter, which consisted of three dignities (a Dean, a Provost, the Archdeacon, the Theologian) fourteen Canons, and the Abbot of S.

At the parliament which met in London in April 1236, however, the Savoyards were the subject of criticism, and Guillaume left England, visited his niece Margaret of Provence, the queen of France, and by 25 June he was back in Savoy, at Chillon.

[15] On 18 November 1238,[16] and again on 23 January 1239, Pope Gregory IX ordered inquiries,[17] and on 29 May 1239, he issued a bull granting the dioceses of Liège, Winchester, and Valence to Guillaume of Savoy.

[18] In mid-August 1239, Guillaume, his brother Count Amadeus IV, the Marquis de Lancia, and the seneschal of the Dauphiné set out for Italy with an army.

[22] In arranging for his own bulls for Winchester and Liège, Guillaume de Savoy also obtained from Gregory IX the concession that one of his brothers would succeed him in Valence.

[26] In mid-August 1242, Boniface's brother Philippe was in Bordeaux with King Henry III and his niece Queen Eleanor; he returned with the royal couple to England in September.

[29] In spring 1244, Philippe petitioned the new pope, Innocent IV (Fieschi), to absolve him from the responsibility for the church of Valence (ipsum absolvere a cura praefatae ecclesiae) so that he could attend a university.

The pope agreed to absolve him, and ordered the archbishop of Vienne to have the Chapter of the cathedral of Valence to conduct a canonical election of a new bishop.

[37] In 1266, the new pope, Clement IV, who had been legal advisor to Count Raymond of Toulouse and to King Louis IX and was later archbishop of Narbonne,[38] undertook to restore civil and ecclesiastical order in Valence.

[44] Having been refused its choice, the Chapter of Valence conducted another election and chose Archbishop Bertrand of Arles, but there was no pope in office to authorize his transfer.

[45] Bishop-elect Guy de Montlaur was already dead by 30 September 1275, the day on which Pope Gregory X appointed Abbot Amadeus of Savigny to be bishop of Valence.

[46] In a letter of 14 May 1239, to the archbishops of Vienne and Embrun, Pope Gregory IX broached the subject of uniting the two dioceses of Valence and Die, which were contiguous, only 42 km (26 mi) apart, but were also in two different ecclesiastical provinces.

[53] Louis took care to enlist the support of the papacy, sending an ambassador who obtained a bull from Pope Pius II, dated 3 May 1459, for the canonical erection of a university at Valence.

[59] His body was buried in the chapel,[60] On 30 December 1799, a discussion was held in Paris by the Consuls of the French Republic, resulting in a decision to repudiate any responsibility and to order a public funeral.

On 2 December 1801, First Consul Bonaparte gave orders allowing the remains to given to Monsignor Giuseppe Spina, Archbishop of Corinth, to be taken to Rome from Valence "with decency but without pomp," in the words of Talleyrand.

[62] The pope then recreated the French ecclesiastical order, respecting in most ways the changes introduced during the Revolution, including the reduction in the number of archdioceses and dioceses.