NARBONA. - Ancient diocese and city in southern France, seat of a district in the department of the Aude. Occupied first by the Ligurians, Iberians, and Celts, Narbonne, under the name of *Narbo Martius*, was the first Roman colony in Gaul and became the capital city of the province of Gallia Narbonensis throughout the Roman period. Under Claudius it assumed the name Colonia Iulia Paterna Claudia Narbo Martius. A fire devastated it and it was restored by Antoninus Pius, but by the 3rd century it was no longer so flourishing. However, both Ausonius and Sidonius Apollinaris extol its public buildings.
With the conquest of 413, Narbonne became part of the Visigothic Kingdom until 759. In the 6th century, Narbonne was still a flourishing colony of Syrian merchants; canons 4 and 14 of the Council of Narbonne in 589 mention among its inhabitants the Goths, Romans, Syrians, Greeks, and Jews. It then passed to the Carolingians, then to the Capetians, and from them to the Counts of Toulouse, who became Dukes of Narbonne. Later it came under the House of Foix until 1509, when it definitively passed to the French crown. It gave its name to the ecclesiastical province of Narbonensis, more or less corresponding to the civil province of the time of Honorius, and included the territories of five cities: Narbonne, Nîmes, Toulouse, Lodève, and Béziers. Following the conquests of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, the territories of the dioceses of Urgel, Vich, Gerona, Barcelona, and later Ampurias and Egara were annexed to France and, passing under the province of Narbonne, remained there until the end of the 11th century.
The first known bishop is Paul, mentioned in the Hieronymian Martyrology on March 22 and assigned by Gregory of Tours to the mid-3rd century (Historia Francorum, I, 30). Prudentius seems to include him among the martyrs (Peristephanon, IV). Bishop Hilary is mentioned in letters of Popes Zosimus and Boniface (Jaffé-Wattenbach, pp. 332, 349, 362). Rusticus (426-61) is attested by inscriptions (CIL, XII, 5336-38) and by letters of Popes Sixtus III and Leo I (Jaffé-Wattenbach, pp. 434-79, 480, 544). His successor was Hermetius, who was however deprived of metropolitan rights by Pope Hilarius (ibid., 554-55). Megasius attended the Councils of Toledo in 589 and 597; at the beginning of the 7th century, Bishop Sergius is recorded, followed by Selva, present at Toledo in 633 and 638, where Scunifredus attended in 683, 684, and 688. Bishop Daniel attended at Rome in 769; Nebridius at Urgel in 799 and 800; Bartholomew at Toulouse in 828, but was deposed from 835.
The archbishops were primates of Gallia Narbonensis and ex officio presidents of the States of Languedoc. In Lent of 1227, a council was held at Narbonne for the search and denunciation of heretics (Hefele-Leclercq, V, II, p. 1454). In 1229, Archbishop Peter Amelius was at Narbonne, and on October 10, 1234, he issued statutes together with the legate of Gregory IX, John of Bernin, and the bishops of Nîmes, Béziers, Toulouse, and Elne, renewing the provisions of the Council of Toulouse. Until 1317, the diocese of Toulouse was suffragan to Narbonne. Two archbishops of Narbonne rose to the Chair of Peter: Guy Foulquoy, who became Clement IV (1265-68), and Giulio de’ Medici, who became Clement VII (1523-34).
Suppressed by the French Revolution in 1790, the diocese of Narbonne was reunited with that of Toulouse by Pope Pius VII under the Concordat of 1801, and in 1822 the archbishop of Toulouse was given the additional title of Bishop of Narbonne. From the inscription of Bishop Rusticus (CIL, XII, 5336), it is learned that the cathedral rebuilt in 445 replaced on the same site one that had burned and which perhaps dated back to the 4th century. The text is of great importance because it records the demolition of the old church’s walls, the laying of the foundation stone, the completion of the apse, the assistance of the Prefect of the Gauls at the time, Marcellus, a devotee of the worship of God, who paid the workers during the two years of his administration and received offerings from other bishops. The inscription was placed in the cathedral by Cardinal de Bonzy in 1681 and is now in the Musée Lapidaire. The present former cathedral, dedicated to St Justus and begun in 1272, remains unfinished.
It contains the tombs of Archbishop B. de Farges (d. 1341), Cardinals Peter de la Jugie (d. 1376) and Briçonnet (d. 1514), and Archbishop L. de Vervins (d. 1628). In the treasury are preserved Flemish and Aubusson tapestries; polychrome stone statues of the apostles Peter and Paul from the 14th century; a missal and an evangelary from the 11th century; the pontifical of Cardinal Jugie; an ivory book cover from the 12th century with eight scenes from the life of Jesus Christ and at its center His Crucifixion. Of the 11th-century cathedral, only the bell tower remains; the site is now occupied by the cloister (1350-1417). The church in honor of St Sebastian, a native of Narbonne, was erected by Archbishop J. D’Arcouet (1450-51) in place of an oratory said, according to tradition, to have stood on his father’s house. The church (14th century) of the ancient Benedictine priory of Lamourgnier or La Mourgne, in the 11th century, is today transformed into a lapidary museum; rich is the epigraphic collection, including the 4th-century inscription of Agroecia. The church of St Paul stands above an ancient oratory near the Via Domitia, in the locality then called ad albolas, where an early Christian cemetery formed, from which come the sarcophagi now preserved in the Gothic church begun in 1224; it was damaged by fire in 1364, extended in the 15th century, reinforced in the 16th and 19th. Excavations begun in 1948 have uncovered numerous sarcophagi from the 4th and 5th centuries. The tomb of St Paul was venerated in the 4th century; Prudentius tells us that Paul had become the glory and ornament of the province. *Surget et Paulo* specia Narbo (Prudentius, Peristephanon, IV, 34). The Hieronymian Martyrology mentions Paul on March 22. Gregory of Tours recalls him in the group of seven bishops who are said to have evangelized Gaul in the mid-3rd century (Historia Francorum, I, 38: PL 71, 175-76). Excavations carried out since 1942 have demonstrated the existence of a cemetery around the venerated tomb; in the sarcophagi coins of Constantine II have been found. At the locality St-Loup, an ancient Christian cemetery was discovered with a sepulchral chapel dedicated to Bishop Rusticus.
The ancient archbishop’s palace is now used as the town hall and museum. This contains the library and a collection of Roman, Christian, Visigothic, and medieval inscriptions; one of the finest collections in France, of ancient ceramics, paintings from French, Italian, and Flemish schools. There is also a reproduction of the edicule containing the Holy Sepulchre as it existed at the time of the Crusades. Some Christian sepulchral inscriptions bear the dates of the years 508 (CIL, XII, 5339), 527 (ibid., 5340), 541 (ibid., 5341), 568 (ibid., 5344), 593 (ibid., 5345); in a 7th-century inscription the priest Adroarius commends himself to all who enter the church; one records a subdeacon Adelfus (ibid., 5346), another a Maria abbess (ibid., 5352). The Christian sarcophagi of Narbonne were first studied by E. Le Blant and then by G. Wilpert (Sarcophagi, pls. 26, 3; 45, 2; 106, 1; 122, 2; 124, 3; pp. 38, 116, 118, 124, 128, 167, 188). In the Library of Narbonne are preserved capitals and movements reproducing Roman models (D. Fossard, Chapiteaux mérovingiens, in Cahiers archéologiques, 2 [1947]).
BIBL.:
Ausonius, *Parentalia*, 13; Sidonius Apollinaris, *Carmina*, V, 12; Jaffé-Wattenbach, *Regesta pontificum Romanorum*, I, pp. 332, 349, 362, 434-79, 480, 544, 554-55; Hefele-Leclercq, *Histoire des conciles*, V, II, p. 1454; Le Blant, *Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule*, I, pp. 165-70; Wilpert, *Sarcofagi*, passim.