Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienne

This collection contains the pretended letters of a series of popes, from Pius I to Paschal II, and sustains the claims of the Church of Vienne.

Many vicissitudes followed, and the territorial limit of the powers of Metropolitan of Vienne followed the wavering frontier of the Kingdom of Burgundy and in 779, was considerably restricted by the organization of a new ecclesiastical province comprising Tarantaise, Aosta (in Italy) and Sitten (or Sion in French; in Switzerland).

According to the chronology created by M. Duchesne, they are: St. Justus, St. Dionysius, St. Paracodes, St. Florentius (about 374), St. Lupicinus, St. Simplicius (about 400), St. Paschasius, St. Nectarius, St. Nicetas (about 449), St. Mamertus (died 475 or 476), who instituted the rogation days, whose brother Claudianus Mamertus was known as a theologian and poet, and during whose episcopate St. Leonianus held for forty years the post of grand penitentiary at Vienne; St. Avitus (494 – 5 February, 518), St. Julianus (about 520–533), Pantagathus (about 538), Namatius (died 559), St. Evantius (died 584–586), St. Verus (586), St. Desiderius (Didier) 596–611, St. Domnolus (about 614), St. Ætherius, St. Hecdicus, St. Chaoaldus (about 654–664), St. Bobolinus, St. Georgius, St. Deodatus, St. Blidrannus (about 680), St. Eoldus, St. Eobolinus, St. Barnardus (810–841), noted for his conspiracies in favour of the sons of Louis the Pious, St.

Among its later bishops were Guy of Burgundy (1084–1119), who became Pope Callixtus II; Christophe de Beaumont, who occupied the see of Vienne for seven months of the year 1745 and afterwards became Archbishop of Paris; Jean Georges Le Franc de Pompignan (1774–1790), brother of the poet and a great enemy of the "philosophers", and also d'Aviau (1790–1801), illustrious because of his strong opposition to the civil constitution of the clergy and the first of the émigré bishops to re-enter France (May, 1797), returning under an assumed name and at the peril of his life.

[1] Michael Servetus was living in Vienne, whither he had been attracted by Archbishop Pierre Palmier, when Calvin denounced him to the Inquisition for his books.