Bernard Saisset
Encyclopedia
Bernard Saisset was an Occitan bishop of Pamiers, in the County of Foix
County of Foix
The County of Foix was an independent medieval fief in southern France, and later a province of France, whose territory corresponded roughly the eastern part of the modern département of Ariège ....

 in the south of France, whose outspoken disrespect for Philip IV of France
Philip IV of France
Philip the Fair was, as Philip IV, King of France from 1285 until his death. He was the husband of Joan I of Navarre, by virtue of which he was, as Philip I, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1284 to 1305.-Youth:A member of the House of Capet, Philip was born at the Palace of...

 incurred charges of high treason in the overheated atmosphere of tension between the King and his ministry and Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII , born Benedetto Gaetani, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Today, Boniface VIII is probably best remembered for his feuds with Dante, who placed him in the Eighth circle of Hell in his Divina Commedia, among the Simonists.- Biography :Gaetani was born in 1235 in...

, leading up to the papal bull
Papal bull
A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....

 Unam sanctam
Unam sanctam
On 18 November 1302, Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam which historians consider one of the most extreme statements of Papal spiritual supremacy ever made...

of 1302.

Bernard Saisset is famous in French history for his opposition to Philip IV. As an ardent Occitan aristocrat of an old noble family, he despised the northern "Frankish" French, and publicly demonstrated it by decrying the Parisian bishop of Toulouse, Pierre de la Chapelle-Taillefer, as "useless to the Church and the country, because he was of a speech that was always an enemy... because the people of the country hate him because of that language."

Further, Saisset was sent in 1301 as papal legate to Philip IV to protest the king's anticlerical measures. But on his return to Pamiers
Pamiers
Pamiers is a commune in the Ariège department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in southwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Although Pamiers is the largest city in Ariège, the capital is the smaller town of Foix...

 he was denounced to the king as having tried to raise a rebellion of Occitan independence, associated with Navarre
Navarre
Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...

, under the banner of the Count of Foix (with whom Saisset had until very recently been embroiled in the courts). The king charged two northerners, Richard Leneveu, archdeacon of Auge
Auge
In Greek mythology, Auge a daughter of Aleus and Neaera and priestess of Athena Alea at Tegea, bore the hero Telephus to Heracles. Her father had been told by an oracle that he would be overthrown by his grandson. She secreted the baby in the temple of Athena...

 in the diocese of Lisieux, and Jean de Picquigni, vidame
Vidame
Vidame, a French corruption of the official Latin term vicedominus , was a feudal title in France...

 of Amiens
Amiens
Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...

, to make an investigation, which lasted several months. Philip's ministry had a well-earned reputation for judicial violence, and Saisset was on the point of escaping to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 when the vidame of Amiens surprised him by night in his episcopal palace at Pamiers. He was brought to Senlis
Senlis, Oise
Senlis is a French commune located in the Oise department near Paris. It has a long and rich heritage, having traversed centuries of history. This medieval town has welcomed some of the most renowned figures in French history, including Hugh Capet, Louis IX, the Marshall of France, Anne of Kiev and...

, and on October 24, 1301 he appeared before Philip and his court. The chancellor, Pierre Flotte
Pierre Flotte
Pierre Flote or Pierre Flotte was a French legalist, Chancellor and Keeper of the Seals of Philip IV the Fair....

, charged him with high treason, and the old charges of heresy
Cathar
Catharism was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries...

 and blasphemy that were always easily levelled against 13th century Occitans, and for saying that Saint Louis
Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...

 was going to Hell and should never have been canonized, and other less than credible charges. By a judicial fiction he was placed in the comparative safe keeping of his own metropolitan, the archbishop of Narbonne.

Philip IV tried to obtain from the pope the canonical degradation of Saisset that was necessary before proceeding against him. Boniface VIII, instead, ordered the king to free the bishop, in order that he might go to Rome to justify himself, which opened a new stage in the quarrel between the pope and king that had been simmering since the Bull Clericis laicos
Clericis laicos
Clericis laicos was a Papal bull issued on February 5, 1296 by Pope Boniface VIII in an attempt to prevent the secular states of Europe, in particular France and England, from appropriating church revenues without the express prior permission of the pope...

of 1296. In the heat of the new struggle, Saisset was fortunately forgotten. He had been turned over in February 1302 into the keeping of Jacques des Normands, the papal legate, and was ordered to leave the kingdom at once. He lived at Rome until after the incident at Anagni
Anagni
Anagni is an ancient town and comune in Latium, central Italy, in the hills east-southeast of Rome. It is a historical center in Ciociaria.-Geography:...

.

In 1308, with a more tractable new pope (Clement VII
Pope Clement VII
Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.-Early life:...

) in residence at Avignon
Avignon Papacy
The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven Popes resided in Avignon, in modern-day France. This arose from the conflict between the Papacy and the French crown....

, the king pardoned Saisset, and restored him to his see. He died in Pamiers, still bishop of Pamiers, about 1314.

Saisset had already been abbot of Saint Antonin of Pamiers in 1268, where he had first come into conflict with Philip IV's aggressive moves on a more local level. The headstrong abbot energetically sustained the centuries-old struggle with the Counts of Foix, represented in Saisset's time by Roger Bernard III (1265-1302), over the lordship of the small city of Pamiers, which had been shared between counts and abbots by the feudal contract of pariage (compare the History of Andorra
History of Andorra
Andorra is the last independent survivor of the Marca Hispanica, the buffer states created by Charlemagne to keep the Islamic Moors from advancing into Christian France. Tradition holds that Charlemagne granted a charter to the Andorran people in return for their fighting the Moors...

, further south in the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...

). Philip IV attempted to give the abbey's share of the city to Foix, and Saisset complained to Rome and opposed the plans in court.

Boniface VIII, detaching the city of Pamiers from the diocese of Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

 in 1295, made it the seat of a new bishopric and raised the faithful Saisset to the new see. In 1297, following an agreement confirming the common rights of count and bishop, the Pope lifted the ban of excommunication
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...

incurred by the Count. Saisset absolved him in the refectory of the Dominican monastery in Pamiers (1300), but the affair may still have rankled.

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