Pons de Marignane

Pons of Marignane and the évêché of Arles

In 513, the pope Symmaque gives to Césaire (502 - August 26th 543) the right to carry the Pallium. It is on the order of Charlemagne and with its assistance that the council of Arles of 813 starts the restoration of temporal churches of Arles and of Marseilles. The emperor associates the bishops with the administration. Their participation in the assemblies of large will be such as at the end of the 9th century the archbishop of Arles has a preponderance crushing on the Church of Provence. Starting from second half of the 10th century the comtales big families and viscontal try to insert the “ecclesiastical mense” in their family inheritance and the Church of Arles must start to compose with them. Thus, a note of a Council of Avignon:

“Then came from the bishop S which were not, but many wolves raptors, invaders simoniaques, publicly married… they was there not pastors, but mercenaries; they did not keep the ewes, but mowed wool and sucked milk” . Maurice of Chârtre (1854) written: “With the opening of the synod, Benoit Benoît VIII, itself living of misappropriations, in the vice and the crime, note lute a long discourse in which it strongly censured the licentious life of the clergy; he showed the priests to dissipate in orgies the goods which they had received from the liberality of the kings, and to employ the treasures of the churches, either to maintain the prostitutes, or to enrich their bastard. He called upon against them the guns of Nicée, which recommended to the ecclesiastics to observe the continence, and defended to them of living with concubines” .

The seizure by the families of the area on the episcopal sees and the chapters explains can be this excessive way to see the things because Pons de Marignane (1005 - 1029), Archevêque of 1022 at 1029, also aimed by this note, has a reputation which is not as hard as that done to the bishops by the Concile of Avignon. Volume VII of the “literary history of France” makes it possible to better include/understand the “refined environment” which reigned at the time:

“the Provence, which since the first decline of the Letters, as one observed in addition, was remained in a whole inaction in this respect, began again in this century of the taste for the Literature. Not only it cultivates the Poetry which one names Provençale; it gave also application to the study of higher sciences. One has some for the abbey of S. Victor of Marseilles in particular, the same evidence that one has just brought in favor of Chair-God. He left indeed this other abbey several characters, who became famous for their doctrines and their holiness of life. Such was Wifroi, which raised the ruins of them, and controlled it in the capacity as abbot until in after having restored there the regular discipline, and the studies which were a continuation. Such was B. Isarn, its successor died in 1048, which having been initially informed of Grammar and the ecclesiastical song with Fredeleze close to Toulouse its fatherland, of which he had been Chanoine, passed for one of best Musiciens of its time. Such were Ponce (Pons de Marignane), Rayambald and Aycard, all three one after the other Archbishops of Arles, Pierre who was it of Aix in 1103, and Raimond II bishop of Marseilles in 1110” .

Pons belongs to these families which have grounds and reached the Noblesse since he is the son of very rich Francon de Marignane and the brother of Profecta which by its marriage will make the fortune of the Baux. The castle of the family was in the west of the current city, some share in the south-eastern quarter of the pond of Bolmon, with Papia, the second place of the commune, where were a church and the castle of the family that Hugues of the Beams will destroy to rebuild it on the current site of Marignane. In Papia, the castle lives mainly by the rights that it attracted, coming from old the tonlieu of Léou. The grounds of the seigneuriale family are kept by seven knight S, the first knights known in the south of France, mentioned in 1029.

At the 10th century, the Archbishop of Arles east in the ecclesiastical order during count in the laic order. Duprat wrote that: “the political prestige of Arles flashes back on the subway. It is in the ecclesiastical order what the count is in the feudal order, also can one note around him like a small court” . The bishops do not lend any more fidelity to the king but to the archbishop of Arles; they are at the same time faithful to the archbishop and the count who exerts a solid power on évêchés since Master of all the public grounds of Provence with the assent of the king.

Pons de Marignane will become archbishop in 1022 under the pope Benoît VIII and will take part in the Synode of Pavia. Since the end of the 10th century, the bishops take the count for lord and thus fidelities lend to him, but the archbishop of Arles, receives the fidelities of all to him without one really knowing to whom himself offered it. However, when Pons de Marignane becomes archbishop, it will seek the Pallium near the pope with Rome and will make the voyage to Geneva to go to see the king. He T it offers fidelity directly? In 1027, died of Henri II, his Conrad son succeeded to him and came in the pontifical city in the church from Saint-Pierre to be made proclaim emperor by the pope Jean XIX; his wife, the Gisele queen was crowned empress with him. Were present Rodolphe, king of Burgundy, Pons, Canut, king of England and Denmark. There were some stormy debates when Canut complains with the pope about the enormous contributions that the the Holy See took on the pilgrims of its kingdom and the tributes which one made pay to the archbishops when they asked pallium.

Pons de Marignane, in 1029 will leave its functions of archbishop to withdraw itself like simple Moine with the abbey of Saint-Victor to Marseilles, under the influence of saint Isarn, the Abbé of the monastery.

According to GERMAN Marcel, " Marignane - Inventory of the patrimoine" , Prolégomènes Editions, 2007

Association of the Marignane-native Inheritance

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