Certain traditions make Saint Maximinus, one of the seventy-two Disciples and the companion of Mary Magdalen in Provence (for which there is no biblical justification), the first bishop of Aix.

Louis Duchesne seems to have proved that this saint, the object of a local cult, was not considered the first bishop of Aix, or connected with the life of Saint Mary Magdalen, except in later legends, devised towards the middle of the 11th century by the monks of Vézelay and by Bishop Rostan de Fos, who was seeking funds for the building of a cathedral.

Gallia Narbonensis Secunda included the cities of Aix, Gap, Sisteron, Apt, Riez, Fréjus, Antibes and Nice.

Bishop Proculus could continue to hold the title of metropolitan during his lifetime, but only out of respect for his personal qualities, not as a matter of principle.

He had been ordained by Bishop Proculus of Marseille, which caused a scandal and reproaches from Pope Zosimus, since he had been condemned at the Council of Turin as a calumniator.

[13] The damage to the ecclesiastical system was so extensive that it called forth a letter from Pope Hadrian I to Archbishop Bertherius of Vienne on 1 January 774.

[14] He advised the archbishop that King Charles (Charlemagne) had visited Rome with reports of the devastation, and had promised to help in restoring things.

[19] He was assisted by Archbishop Gibelinus of Arles, Joannes of Cavaillon, Berengar of Fréjus, and Augerius of Riez, as well as the dignitaries of Aix: the provost, the archdeacon, the sacristan, two archpriests, and at least six canons.

[20] It is said that Bishop Foulques (c. 1115 – c. 1132) increased the number of canons in the cathedral chapter from twelve to twenty, and that he obtained the sanction of Pope Honorius II (1124–1130) for his actions.

[23] In 1099, shortly after his coronation, Pope Paschal II repeated this decision in a letter to Archbishop Bertrand of Narbonne.

[26] The University of Aix was founded in 1409 by Pope Alexander V, which was confirmed by Count Louis (II) of Provence on 30 December 1413.

The diocese of Aix was revived by Pope Pius VII in his bull Qui Christi Domini of 29 November 1801.

[39] Under the Concordat, however, Bonaparte exercised the same privileges as had the kings of France, especially that of nominating bishops for vacant dioceses, with the approval of the Pope.

[41] In accordance with the Concordat between Pope Pius VII and King Louis XVIII, signed on 11 June 1817, the transfer of Bishop de Bausset of Vannes to the Archdiocese of Aix was preconised on 1 October 1817.

The five faculties of theology (at Paris, Bordeaux, Aix, Rouen, and Lyon), which had been supported financially by the State, were suppressed.

[43] In the 1890s the archbishop of Aix, François Xavier Gouthe-Soulard, came into increasing disrepute, both with Paris and with the Vatican, because of his support for the extreme right-wing anti-republican Congregation of the Assumption (Assumptionists).

[46] For the election cycle of 1898, Senator Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, who was a Catholic and a conservative, but a republican and far from being an anti-Semite, formed an electoral alliance between the Opportunists and the Rallié as he ran for President of the Republic.

The Assumptionists and La Croix did everything they could to disrupt this conservative-moderate alliance, and in the superheated atmosphere following the Dreyfus Affair did considerable damage.

[47] When they were convicted in January 1900, Archbishop-Gouthe-Soulard and five other bishops published letters in La Croix, sympathizing with the plight of the Assumptionists.

[48] Waldeck-Rousseau then struck against the Archbishop, sending each of the six bishops a notice on 30 January that their defiance of the law was unacceptable, and informing them that their payments from the Caisses du Trésor were suspended.

They were ordered by Pope Pius X to resign (Le Nordez had been denounced as a freemason), and the French Chamber of Deputies replied by voting to sever diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

Similarly, in 1904, as part of the liquidation of the Salesian Fathers in France, who did not have the status of an authorized congregation according to the law of 1 July 1901, the archbishop of Aix, François-Joseph Bonnefoy, had to appear in a court in Marseille to be granted title to the domaine de Saint-Pierre-de-Canon, which had been given the Salesians as a legacy; otherwise the property would have been confiscated by the State.

This meant, among other things, the end of financial support of any religious group on the part of the French government and all of its subdivisions.

On 11 February 1906, Pope Pius X responded with the encyclical Vehementer Nos, which condemned the Law of 1905 as a unilateral abrogation of the Concordat.