Carpentras, Diocese of

CARPENTRAS, Diocese of. - Small town and ancient diocese in the department of Vaucluse, from the Celtic name Carpentoracte. Its first bishop of whom there is record is Constantius, who had himself represented at the Council of Riez (439) and was present at those of Orange (441) and Vaison (442). Later there is a Julian (517-29), then Siffredus (Siffrein), who was buried in the basilica of the Most Holy Trinity of Venasque, which in the 6th century seems to have been united to C., because Clematus, Siffredus's successor, at the Council of Orléans in 541 signed as episcopus civitatis Carpentoratensium et Vindascensium.

But until the middle of the 13th century the list of the bishops of C. has many gaps. In 1228, by the Treaty of Paris, C., which was part of the comitatus Vendascensis (whence Comtat venaisin), passed into the ownership of the Holy See and became the ordinary residence of the pontifical legates. In 1475 the diocese, until then under the ecclesiastical province of Arles, passed under the jurisdiction of the new diocese of Avignon. From the 16th century many of its bishops were Italians; the diocese was not extensive and in 1709 it comprised 29 parishes. Suppressed in 1802, it was definitively united to Avignon in 1818.

Enrico Joss