Bernard Saisset (c. 1232 – c. 1314) was an Occitan bishop of Pamiers, in the County of Foix in the south of France, whose outspoken disrespect for Philip IV of France incurred charges of high treason in the overheated atmosphere of tension between the King and his ministry and Pope Boniface VIII, leading up to the papal bull Unam sanctam of 1302. Occitan ( IPA BrE: /ˈɒksɪtn/ AmE: /ˈɑksəˌtɑn/ known also as Lenga d'òc or Langue d'oc (native name occitan The County of Foix was an independent medieval fief in Southern France, and later a Province of France, whose territory corresponded roughly the eastern Pope Boniface VIII (c 1235 &ndash October 11, 1303) born Benedetto Caetani, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1294 A Papal bull is a particular type of Letters patent or charter issued by a Pope. On November 18, 1302, Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam which historians consider one of the most extreme statements
Bernard Saisset is famous in French history for his opposition to Philip IV. As an ardent Occitan aristocrat of an old noble family, he despised the northern "Frankish" French, and publicly demonstrated it by decrying the Parisian bishop of Toulouse, Pierre de la Chapelle-Taillefer, as "useless to the Church and the country, because he was of a speech that was always an enemy. . . because the people of the country hate him because of that language. "
Further, Saisset was sent in 1301 as papal legate to Philip IV to protest the king's anticlerical measures. But on his return to Pamiers he was denounced to the king as having tried to raise a rebellion of Occitan independence, associated with Navarre, under the banner of the Count of Foix (with whom Saisset had until very recently been embroiled in the courts). Pamiers is a commune in the Ariège département in southwestern France. counts of Foix ruled the independent County of Foix, in what is now southern France, during the Middle Ages. The king charged two northerners, Richard Leneveu, archdeacon of Auge in the diocese of Lisieux, and Jean de Picquigni, vidame of Amiens, to make an investigation, which lasted several months. In Greek mythology, Auge (ˈɔːdʒiː a daughter of Aleus and Neaera and priestess of Athena Alea at Tegea, bore the hero The bishop of Lisieux was the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lisieux. Vidame, a French corruption of the official Latin term vicedominus ('vice-lord' was a Feudal title in France. Amiens (amjɛ̃ is a city and commune in northern France, 120 km north of Paris. Philip's ministry had a well-earned reputation for judicial violence, and Saisset was on the point of escaping to Rome when the vidame of Amiens surprised him by night in his episcopal palace at Pamiers. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 He was brought to Senlis, and on October 24, 1301 he appeared before Philip and his court. Events 69 - Second Battle of Bedriacum, forces under Antonius Primus the commander of the Danube armies loyal to Vespasian, defeat The chancellor, Pierre Flotte, charged him with high treason, and the old charges of heresy and blasphemy that were always easily levelled against 13th century Occitans, and for saying that Saint Louis was going to Hell and should never have been canonized, and other less than credible charges. Pierre Flote or Pierre Flotte ( Languedoc, second half of the 13th century &ndash Kortrijk, July 11, 1302) was a French legalist Canonization is the act by which a particular Christian church declares a deceased person to be a Saint and is included in the canon or list of recognized saints By a judicial fiction he was placed in the comparative safe keeping of his own metropolitan, the archbishop of Narbonne. The former Catholic diocese of Narbonne existed from early Christian times until the French Revolution.
Philip IV tried to obtain from the pope the canonical degradation of Saisset that was necessary before proceeding against him. Boniface VIII, instead, ordered the king to free the bishop, in order that he might go to Rome to justify himself, which opened a new stage in the quarrel between the pope and king that had been simmering since the Bull Clericis laicos of 1296. Clericis laicos was a Papal bull issued on February 25, 1296 by Pope Boniface VIII in an attempt to prevent the secular states of Europe in In the heat of the new struggle, Saisset was fortunately forgotten. He had been turned over in February 1302 into the keeping of Jacques des Normands, the papal legate, and was ordered to leave the kingdom at once. He lived at Rome until after the incident at Anagni. Anagni, (Latin Anagnia) is an ancient town in Latium, Italy, in the hills east-southeast of Rome famous for its connections with the papacy and for the
In 1308, with a more tractable new pope (Clement VII) in residence at Avignon, the king pardoned Saisset, and restored him to his see. For the Antipope (1378&ndash1394 see Antipope Clement VII. Pope Clement VII ( May 26, 1478 &ndash September In the History of the Roman Catholic Church, the Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1377 during which seven Popes all French, resided in Avignon He died in Pamiers, still bishop of Pamiers, about 1314.
Saisset had already been abbot of Saint Antonin of Pamiers in 1268, where he had first come into conflict with Philip IV's aggressive moves on a more local level. The headstrong abbot energetically sustained the centuries-old struggle with the Counts of Foix, represented in Saisset's time by Roger Bernard III (1265-1302), over the lordship of the small city of Pamiers, which had been shared between counts and abbots by the feudal contract of pariage (compare the History of Andorra, further south in the Pyrenees). Roger-Bernard III (1243 &ndash 3 March 1302) was the Count of Foix from 1265 to his death In Medieval France a paréage or pariage was a Feudal treaty recognising joint sovereignty over a territory by two rulers who were on an equal Andorra is the last independent survivor of the Marca Hispanica, the Buffer states created by Charlemagne to keep the Islamic Moors The Pyrenees (Pirineos French: Pyrénées; Catalan: Pirineus; Occitan: Pirenèus; Aragonese: Perinés Philip IV attempted to give the abbey's share of the city to Foix, and Saisset complained to Rome and opposed the plans in court.
Boniface VIII, detaching the city of Pamiers from the diocese of Toulouse in 1295, made it the seat of a new bishopric and raised the faithful Saisset to the new see. Toulouse ( pronounced in standard French, and in the local accent ( Occitan: Tolosa, pronounced) is a city in southwest In 1297, following an agreement confirming the common rights of count and bishop, the Pope lifted the ban of excommunication incurred by the Count. Excommunication is a religious Censure used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community Saisset absolved him in the refectory of the Dominican monastery in Pamiers (1300), but the affair may still have rankled.
External links
- Roger-Bernard III, Count of Foix: Saisset's adversary at Pamiers (French)
- Georges Passerat, "L'affaire Bernard Saisset" (French)
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911 is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone
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