Hagiographie et création de diocèses dans le midi de la France à la fin du Moyen Âge

Résumé En

The ecclesiastical reform of John XXII leads to the creation of sixteen new dioceses in southern France. The article explores the role of hagiography in the processes of identity’s construction and legitimation of these dioceses. The Speculum Sanctorale composed by the Dominican Bernard Gui does not seem to have played this role, even if it helped to support the Avignon papacy and its ecclesiastical reform by showing that the South of France is a land of ancient evangelization and holiness. Apostolic hagiography is used intensively by Narbonne, a metropolitan seat weakened by the ecclesiastical reform.Narbonne wishes to remind its own role in Christian history. Some later hagiographical initiatives take place at the level of the dioceses, particularly at the end of the 15th century in the diocese of Saint-Papoul where bishop Pierre Soybert leads an important hagiographic compilation intended to give a miraculous history to his diocese.