Vienne Cathedral (french: Cathédrale Saint-Maurice de Vienne) is a medieval

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

in the city of

Vienne Vienne (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Viéne'') is a landlocked department in the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It takes its name from the river Vienne. It had a population of 438,435 in 2019.France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Dedicated to

Saint Maurice Saint Maurice (also Moritz, Morris, or Mauritius; ) was an Egyptians, Egyptian military leader who headed the legendary Theban Legion of Roman Empire, Rome in the 3rd century, and is one of the favorite and most widely venerated saints of that Ma ...

, it was the episcopal see of the

primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

of the ancient ''

Septem Provinciae The Diocese of the Seven Provinces ( la, Dioecesis Septem Provinciarum), originally called the Diocese of Vienne ( la, Dioecesis Viennensis) after the city of ''Vienna'' (modern Vienne), was a diocese of the later Roman Empire, under the praetoria ...

'' and of the

Archdiocese of Vienne The Archbishopric of Vienne, named after its episcopal seat in Vienne in the Isère département of southern France, was a metropolitan Roman Catholic archdiocese. It is now part of the Archdiocese of Lyon. History The legend according to whic ...

until its abolition confirmed by the

Concordat of 1801 The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII, signed on 15 July 1801 in Paris. It remained in effect until 1905, except in Alsace-Lorraine, where it remains in force. It sought national reconciliation b ...

. It today serves as co-cathedral of the

Diocese of Grenoble-Vienne The Roman Catholic Diocese of Grenoble–Vienne-les-Allobroges (Latin: ''Diocesis Gratianopolitana–Viennensis Allobrogum''; French: ''Diocèse de Grenoble–Vienne-les-Allobroges'') is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church i ...

. The present-day building, erected from 1130 onwards, was classified a French

national heritage site A national heritage site is a heritage site having a value that has been registered by a governmental agency as being of national importance to the cultural heritage or history of that country. Usually such sites are listed in a heritage registe ...

(''

monument historique ''Monument historique'' () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which National Heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a coll ...

'') in the

list of historic monuments of 1840 The List of historic monuments protected in 1840 is a list of the historic monuments of France created in 1840 by the French Commission for Historical Monuments (''Commission des monuments historiques''). It was the first protection of this type i ...

Construction history

Mentioned as the burial place of the Burgundian king

Boso of Provence Boso (french: Boson; c. 841 – 11 January 887) was a Franks, Frankish nobleman of the Bosonids, Bosonid family who was related to the Carolingians, Carolingian dynasty and who rose to become King of Burgundy, King of Lower Burgundy and King o ...

in 887, no traces are left from the former church buildings at the site. Construction works at Vienne Cathedral are documented under the tenure of Archbishop Léger from 1030 to 1070; on 9 February 1119, Archbishop

Guy of Burgundy Guy of Burgundy, also known as Guy of Brionne, was a member of the House of Ivrea with a claim to the Duchy of Normandy. He held extensive land from his cousin, Duke William the Bastard, but lost it following his unsuccessful rebellion in the late 1 ...

was crowned Pope here (as ''Callixtus II''). The construction of the preserved church was begun in a Late Romanesque style about 1130. Built over a long period,

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

modifications and extensions were carried out until its consecration by

Pope Innocent IV Pope Innocent IV ( la, Innocentius IV; – 7 December 1254), born Sinibaldo Fieschi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 June 1243 to his death in 1254. Fieschi was born in Genoa and studied at the universitie ...

on 20 April 1251. From 16 October 1311,

Pope Clement V Pope Clement V ( la, Clemens Quintus; c. 1264 – 20 April 1314), born Raymond Bertrand de Got (also occasionally spelled ''de Guoth'' and ''de Goth''), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 5 June 1305 to his de ...

convened the

Council of Vienne The Council of Vienne was the fifteenth ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church and met between 1311 and 1312 in Vienne, France. One of its principal acts was to withdraw papal support for the Knights Templar at the instigation of Phili ...

, where the clergy resolved upon the dissolution of the

Knights Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

. The facade was added in the 16th century, with the capstone ceremony held in 1529. The present-day building is a

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

, with three

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

s and an

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

, but no

ambulatory The ambulatory ( la, ambulatorium, ‘walking place’) is the covered passage around a cloister or the processional way around the east end of a cathedral or large church and behind the high altar. The first ambulatory was in France in the 11th ...

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

s, 315 feet in length, 118 feet wide and 89 feet in height. The most striking portion is the west front, which rises majestically from a terrace overhanging the

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

. However, the sculptural decoration was badly damaged by plundering

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

forces under Baron François de Beaumont in 1562, during the

French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estim ...

. In the wake of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, the Vienne archdiocese was dissolved and the former cathedral became a plain parish church, while the surrounding premises temporarily served as barns or barracks and eventually were demolished. The episcopal territory was transferred mostly to the Diocese of Grenoble, while the title was added first to that of the

Archbishops of Lyon The Archdiocese of Lyon (Latin: ''Archidiœcesis Lugdunensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Lyon''), formerly the Archdiocese of Lyon–Vienne–Embrun, is a Latin Church metropolitan archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. The Archbishops o ...

, known between 1822 and 2006 as the Archbishops of Lyon-Vienne, and then from 2006 to that of the Bishops of Grenoble, now known as the Bishops of Grenoble-Vienne.

Sources

* Roman Catholic cathedrals in France Churches in Isère Burial sites of the Bosonids {{France-RC-cathedral-stub