Bishopric of Basel
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| Bishopric of Basel Bistum Basel | |
| |
| 6th Century - present | |
| Capital Circle Bench | Basel Solothurn from 1828 Upper Rhenish Council of Princes |
| Transferred from Augst | 6th Century |
| Prince of the Empire | 999 |
| Secularised to Baden | 1802 |
The Bishopric of Basel is a diocese of the Roman Catholic church, based in Basel in Switzerland. The diocese covers the Swiss cantons of Aargau, Basel-Country, Basel-City, Berne, Jura, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Solothurn, Thurgau, and Zug. The bishopric was transferred to Basel from Augst some time during the 6th Century.
[edit] The early history of the Bishopric of Basel
A diocese definitely existed at Augst (Roman Augusta Rauracorum) in the 4th Century but little is known of it. After Augst decayed considerably during the Great Migrations, the diocese was transferred to Basel during the 6th Century. Very little is known of the early bishops. The most important of the early bishops is Hatto (805 - 822). He was a monk from the Abbey of Reichenau and a close friend of the Emperor Charlemagne. After a reign which brought importance to the diocese, he retired to Reichenau where he died in 836. In 999 the foundations of the Prince-Bishopric were laid when King Rudolph III of Burgundy granted Bishop Adalbert II (999 - 1018) princely rank and several territories and rights. Adalbert later rebuilt the cathedral and consecrated it in the presence of the Emperor Henry II and his wife.
The Emperors Henry II, Henry III and Conrad II further enlarged the secular territory of the bishopric through generous grants. During the Investiture Controversy the bishops took the side of the Emperors against the Popes. Berengar (1057 - 1072) promoted the election of the Antipope Honorius at the Council of Basel in 1061. Burchard of Hasenburg (1072 - 1105) accompanied the Emperor Henry IV to Canossa. Ortlieb of Froburg (1137 - 1164) went on Crusade with the Emperor Conrad III and took part in the Italian Campaigns of the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. Louis I Garewart (1164 - 1179) was deposed by Pope Alexander III for his support for Antipope Paschal.
Henry II of Thun (1238 - 1249) built the first bridge across the Rhine near Basel. Peter II of Aspelt (1296 - 1306) endeavoured to restore church discipline in the diocese and was later made Archbishop of Mainz. During the following century the diocese's prestige declined considerably. Succeeding bishops left the diocese in debt through quarrels with both the nobility of the prince-bishopric and the city of Basel, the latter of which made itself practically independent. When John II of Munsingen (1335 - 1365) supported King Louis IV, he and the entire city of Basel were excommunicated. In response the citizens of the city threw the Papal nuncio into the Rhine and forced the clergy to either continue services or be exiled. An earthquake in 1356 greatly damaged the cathedral and destroyed a large part of the city.
John III of Vienne (1365 - 1382) quarrelled with the city of Berne, which lead to him besieging it. The debt from this accumulated with earlier debts, and several succeeding bishops resigned the see in anxiety. It was not until the two synods and several reforms of John IV of Fleckenstein (1423 - 1436) that diocese was restored to glory. The diocese soon suffered between the struggles between the Swiss Confederacy and Duke Charles of Burgundy as many towns and castles were ravaged and destroyed. The diocese reached its height in the 15th Century. The borders of the diocese, not the borders of the principality of the bishopric, contained the region between the Rivers Rhine, Aare and Doubs, Alsace as far as Sélestat and Ribeauvillé as well as a few other territories in modern Baden-Württemberg and France.
The most celebrated of the bishops of this era was Christopher of Otenheim (1502 - 1527). A patron of the arts and science, he promoted the printing industry in Basel when lead to a period of increased prosperity. At a diocesan synid in 1503, he implemented reforms intended to improve the clergy and he also summoned professors to the university founded in 1460. The latter measure lead to the introduction of the Reformation as protestant preachers converged on Basel and used its printing industry to spread protestant texts abroad quickly. The diocese was quickly divided into two religious parties and disputes were common. In 1527 Christopher resigned the see. Before his successor Philip of Gundelsheim (1527 - 1553) could arrive in Basel, the Protestant party siezed power. The monasteries were closed and the churches were plundered. The cathedral chapter fled to Freiburg im Breisgau outside the diocese while Philip established himself in Porrentruy.
Philip and the succeeding bishops worked to repair the damage the Reformation and later Counter-Reformation caused. The greatest of these bishops was Jacob Christopher Blarer of Wartenberg (1574 - 1608). In 1580 he formed an offensive and defensive alliance with the Catholic cantons of Switzerland. He returned from the Council of Trent and proclaimed its results. In 1581 he held a diocesan synod which later proved beneficial, and ultimately returned many people to Catholicism. In 1591 the Jesuits were called to the diocese.
During the Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648), the bishopric was invaded by Duke Bernard I of Saxe-Weimar. In 1678 the Cathedral chapter returned to the diocese when it established itself at Arlesheim. John Conrad II of Reinach-Hirtzbach (1705 - 1737 issued a decree in 1726 greatly curtailing the rights of the citizenry in the bishopric. The result was an uprising of the people which was only suppressed with the assistance of French soldiers during the reign of his successor Jacob Sigismund of Reinach-Steinbrunn (1727 - 1743). In 1740 the leaders of the revolt were executed. The people were hereafter estranged to the bishops despite the attempts at reconciliation by their successors.
In 1792 the territories of the bishopric were occupied by soldiers of the French Revolution and the reigning bishop, Joseph of Roggenbach (1783 - 1794) fled to Constance. The Prince-Bishopric was turned into the Rauracian Republic which was four months later in 1793 annexed to France. Besides the loss of secular jurisdiction, the bishops also foregoed much of the ecclesiastical territory to the Bishopric of Strasbourg after the concordat between Pope Pius VII and Napoleon Bonaparte. Joseph's successor Francis Xavier de Neveu (1794 - 1828) held ecclesiastical jurisdiction only in Solothurn, Aargau, and Berne. In 1814 a large part of the former diocese was returned to him but his attempts to regain secular rule failed. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna awarded the territory of the former prince-bishopric, apart from that in Germany, to the cantons of Berne and Basel.
Shortly after this, Switzerland was reorganised following the interruptions of the Napoleonic Era. In 1814 the ecclesiastical territory of the Bishopric of Constance in Switzerland was severed and temporarily placed under a vicar apostolic. Long negotiations ensued between the cantons in which this territory lay, but slowly they agreed with the plan propsed by Solothurn whereby this was attached to the diocese of Basel. The negotiations with Rome were concluded in 1828, and the diocese contained the cantons of Lucerne, Berne, Solothurn, and Zug. Solothurn became the capital of the see. In 1829 Aargau and Thurgau were added. In 1841 Basel and Schaffhausen were added, the latter only provisionally until 1858 although it was not confirmed by the Papacy.
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