BAYONNE, Diocese of. – In southwestern France, in the department of the Basses-Pyrénées, a suffragan of Auch. Known under the name of Lapurdum as the residence of a tribune of the cohort of Novempopulana or Aquitania III, it was evangelized in ancient times. No bishop of this diocese, formed at the expense of that of Dax and of Spanish territory (perhaps as early as the 8th century), is known before the 11th century. The regular episcopal list begins in 1106, with Raymond, episcopus Lapurdensis, the first to style himself episcopus Baionensis, from the name of B. which would henceforth be reserved for the episcopal city. Originally it seems that, following Charlemagne’s conquests in Spain, a part of the dioceses of Navarre and Guipúzcoa were united to the diocese of B. In 1566, Pius V united the parishes situated in Spanish territory to the dioceses of Pamplona and Calahorra; some others, but only in 1862, were united to that of Vitoria.
The Napoleonic Concordat disrupted the boundaries of this diocese by adding to the department of the Basses-Pyrénées the territories of the dioceses of the Landes and the Hautes-Pyrénées. The present diocese comprises the whole of the ancient dioceses of B., of Oloron, almost the entirety of Lescar, and part of the dioceses of Aire, Tarbes, and Dax. The bishop of B., since 1909, also bears the title of bishop of Lescar and Oloron.
The diocese has 415,797 inhabitants, almost all Catholic, divided into 510 parishes, with 837 secular priests and 137 regular clergy (1948). The cathedral, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, is in the Gothic style; begun in the 12th century, it was completed in the 16th. – See Plate XLIV.
Religious institutions in these Basque and Béarnais provinces began in 1068 with the foundation of the Benedictine abbey of St Stephen of B., followed in 1215 by the Dominicans and soon after by the Franciscans and other religious communities. After the French Revolution, these were augmented by numerous other institutions, works, and religious foundations.