Roman Catholic Diocese of Vic

A diocese was first established at Vic in the fifth century. After the Islamic conquest of Spain in 711, the diocese was abandoned.

The diocese was re-established in 886, shortly after the official re-settlement of the Plain of Vic had begun in 878. According to one theory, the new diocese was a product of the initiative of the Sunyer II, count of Empúries, and Teuter, bishop of Girona, to spread their influence westward at the expense of Count Wifred I of Osona.[1] It is more likely that the see was re-founded with the support of Wifred, who petitioned the archdiocese of Narbonne to accept it as a suffragan.[1] Although Vic was the traditional capital of the County of Osona, the county and the bishopric were not coterminous. The monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll, one of the most important in the diocese, lay within the County of Besalú.[1] So long as the counts of Osona were also counts of Barcelona, they appointed viscounts to rule in Osona, and these usually resided at the castle of Cardona in the diocese of Urgell.[1] As a result, the bishops of Vic came to control the city itself, blending public, private and ecclesiastical power there.[1]

There is a surviving charter of King Odo dated 889, in which the king appears to grant the count of Osona to the bishop, but most of the text is of a later date and is unreliable.[2] The king did grant the fortress at Artés to the bishop, as well as one third of public revenue in the county.[2] By 911, when the will of Count Wifred II granted a third of the profits of the mints in Osona to the bishop, the latter had already replaced the viscount as the most powerful person in the county.[2] During the reign of Louis IV (936–54), the bishop of Vic received royal confirmation of his monetary right.[2] In 957, without any authority to do so, the bishop began keeping back all the profits of the mints for the church.[2] Throughout the 10th century the counts of Osona sought to re-settle the west of the county and fortify the frontier. To this end they granted many frontier castles to the bishop to hold.[3]

• Basilica of Santa Maria, Igualada
• Basilica of Santa Maria de la Seu, Manresa

• Sant Jaume de Vallverd

• GCatholic.org
• Catholic Hierarchy
• Diocese website (in Catalan)
• Bishops of Vic Diocese website (in Catalan)

41.9281°N 2.2556°E / 41.9281; 2.2556