Home > Bishops of Sion
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sion (Latin Sedunensis), in the Swiss canton of Valais, is the oldest bishopric in Switzerland and one of the oldest north of the Alps. The cathedral at Sion, is "Notre-Dame du Glarier." The history of the Bishops of Sion, of the Abbey of Saint-Maurice and the Valais as a whole are inextricably entwined.1 Early history
At first the see was sited at Octodurum, now called Martigny/Martinach. The first authentically historical bishop was Saint Theodore (died in 391), who was present at the Council of Aquileia in 381. He founded the Abbey of Saint-Maurice , with a small church in honor of Saint Maurice, martyred there ca 300, when he united the local hermits in a common life, thus beginning the Abbey of Saint-Maurice, the oldest north of the Alps. Theodore rebuilt the church at Sion, which had been destroyed by Emperor Maximianus at the beginning of the fourth century. At first the new diocese was a suffragan of the arch diocese of Vienne; later it became suffragan of Tarentaise.
In 589 the bishop, St Heliodorus, transferred the see to Sion, leaving the low-lying, flood-prone site of Octodurum, where the Drance joins the Rhone. Though frequently the early bishops were also abbots of Saint-Maurice, the monastic community was jealously watchful that the bishops should not extend their jurisdiction over the abbey. Several of the bishops united both offices: Wilcharius ( 764- 780), previously Archbishop of Vienne, whence he had been driven by the Moors; St. Alteus, who received from the pope a bull of exemption in favour of the monastery ( 780); Aimo II, son of Count Hubert of Savoy , who entertained Leo IXLeo IX ne Bruno d'Eguisheim-Dagsbourg ( June 21, 1002 April 19, 1054) was pope from February 12, 1049 to his death. He was a native of Eguisheim, Upper Alsace. The family to which he belonged was of noble rank, and through his father he was related to the at Saint-Maurice in 1049Events Leo IX becomes pope. Births Deaths 1049..
About 999Alternate uses, see Number 999. Events Silesia is incorporated into territory ruled by Boleslaus I of Poland Pope Silvester II succeeds Pope Gregory V Births Deaths December 16 Saint Adelaide of Italy 999., the last king of Upper BurgundyRegion Franche-Comt Details Information Capital: Besancon Population Total Density 1,117,059 1999 69 /kmē Area16,202 kmē Arrondissements9 Cantons116 Communes1,786 President of the regional council Raymond Forni Departements Doubs (25) Haute-Saone(70) Jura, Rudolph III , granted the CountThis page is about the European nobility; for the baseball term, see count (baseball). A count is a nobleman in various European countries, of the equivalent rank of a British earl. Originally the title denoted the rank of a high official in the late Romaship of Valais to Bishop Hugo ( 998Events Benedictine abbey founded at Sherborne Births Deaths Abu'l-Wafa, iranian mathematician 998.- 1017Events Canute the Great is acclaimed king of England. England is divided into the earldoms of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria. Abd-ar-Rahman IV is Umayyad caliph, succeeding Suleiman II. Canute marries Emma of Normandy. Births October 29: Henr); this union of the spiritual and secular powers made the prince-bishop the most powerful ruler in the valley of the Upper Rhone, the region called the Valais. Taking this donation as a basis, the bishops of Sion extended their secular power, and the religious metropolis of the valley became also the political centre. However, the union of the two powers was the cause of violent disputes in the following centuries. For, while the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishop, as Bishop of Sion, extended over the whole valley of the Rhone above Lake Geneva, the Countship of Valais included only the upper part of the valley, reaching to the confluence of the Trient and the Rhone. The attempts of the bishops of Sion to carry their secular power farther down the Rhone were bitterly and successfully opposed by the abbots of Saint-Maurice, who had obtained large possessions in Lower Valais.
The medieval bishops of Sion were generally appointed from the younger sons of noble families of Savoy and Valais and often drew the resources of the see into the feuds of these families. Moreover the bishops were vigorously opposed, as a matter of principle, by the petty feudal nobles of Valais, each in their fortified castle on rocky heights, seeking to evade the supremacy of the bishop who was at the same time count and prefect of the Holy Roman Empire. Especially in the 14th and 15th centuries, the benefactors in these traditional struggles were often the rich peasant communities of Upper Valais, which were called later the sieben Zehnten (the "seven tenths"), who exacted increasing ppolitical rights as the price of support. Thus Bishop William IV of Raron ( 1437- 1457) was obliged to relinquish civil and criminal jurisdiction over the sieben Zehnten by the Treaty of Naters in 1446, while a revolt of his subjects compelled Bishop Jost of Silinen ( 1482- 1496) to flee from the diocese.
Sion and the district of the Valais were constantly drawn into wider struggles. Linked to the Helvetic Confederation since the 15th century, the Valais region was for long divided between the French party (typified by Georg of Supersaxo ) and the Burgundian-Milanese alliance, to which a powerful personage, Cardinal Matthaeus Schiner ( 1465- 1522), bishop of Sion, had thrown his support. Walter II of Supersaxo ( 1457- 1482) had taken part in the battles of the Swiss against Charles the Bold of Burgundy and his ally, the Duke of Savoy, and in 1475 they drove the House of Savoy from Lower Valais. The most important bishop of Sion in this era was Mattheus Schiner ( 1499- 1522), a highly cultivated humanist who feared French supremacy enough to place the military force of the diocese at the disposal of the pope and in 1510 brought about an alliance for five years between the Swiss Confederacy and the Roman Church, only to end up as one of the biggest losers in the Swiss defeat at Marignano in 1515, in which the bishop fought himself. In return for his support, Julius II made Schiner a cardinal and in 1513 accepted direct control of the see, which gave the Bishops of Sion much of the authority of an archbishop. The defeat at Marignano and the arbitrary rule of his brothers led to a revolt of Schiner's subjects; in 1518 he was obliged to flee the diocese.
