[3] In 1566, King Philip II of Spain, shocked and angry at the behavior of the Calvinist ruling family of Navarre, petitioned the Pope to save the Catholics on the south side of the Pyrenees by placing them for a time under the government of the bishop of Pamplona.
In the reorganization of the ecclesiastical structure of the Church in France, necessitated by accelerated urbanization and other changes in population, Pope John Paul II, on 8 December 2002, made Bayonne suffragan of the metropolitan archdiocese of Bordeaux.
[10] Bishop Raymond III de Martres (1122–1125) was given half of the city of Bayonne by William IX, Duke of Aquitaine.
In 1177, Richard, the son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, made war in Gascony, besieged Dax and its Count, Pierre de Bigorre, and then besieged Bayonne and its Vicomte Arnaud for ten days, and then marched south as far as Port du Cize (Port d'Espagne).
[14] On 14 February 1348 Bishop de Saint-Johan was named one of the arbitrators on claims and complaints between English and Castilian subjects.
[15] The replacement for the old Romanesque cathedral, whose history is lost, was begun under Arnaud Loup de Bessabat, ca.
[16] The original main altar of the Gothic cathedral had on its sides the arms of Cardinal Guillaume Pierre Godin, who died in 1335.
[17] The new altar, sanctuary and choir were the work of Bishop René-François de Beauvau du Rivau (1701–1707).
The Council of Constance took cognizance of the situation in its 31st Session, and ordered that the number be reduced to the traditional twelve.
[21] The Chapter of Bayonne had a set of statutes as early as 1322, which are known to have regulated the distributions which came to the canons by virtue of their office.
[22] In 1533 Bishop Étienne de Poncher (1532–1551) published Statutes of the Synod, which included legislation on the practices of the choir, which the canons discussed and accepted, but which had become a dead letter by 1570, due no doubt to the protestantization of the Gascon part of the diocese, and the partition ordered by Pope Pius V in 1566.
[23] On 15 August 1676, Bishop Jean d'Olce issued new Statutes for the cathedral chapter on the recommendation of the promoter of the diocese, in order to address various abuses in the carrying out of sacred ceremonies.
[26] The diocese also contained two monasteries, both of Premonstratensians: Leuntium (La Honce), a few miles east of Bayonne; and Urdacium (Ourdace), in Navarre.
At the beginning of the 18th century there were seven houses of religious in Bayonne, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, the Augustinians, the Capuchins, the Clarisses, and the Recollects.
[29] During the French Revolution the diocese of Bayonne was suppressed by the Legislative Assembly, under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790).