Chronology of Catholic Dioceses:Notes on the Abbey of Ripoll / Santa Maria de Ripoll

Notes on the Abbey of Ripoll / Santa Maria de Ripoll

This Benedictine Abbey within the present confines of the Diocese of Girona was founded in 879. The first Papal Bull of Exemption is from 951 (Pope Agapitus II). The abbey was closed by the Government in 1835, and then briefly reopened 1837-1838, by the followers of the Pretender Don Carlos. The last abbott died in 1845.

There were several abbeys which were territorially exempt - i.e. jurisdictions of their own right, independent from the diocese surrounding them - in Mediaeval Spain. The abbeys were usually founded in the Medieval Age, and, because the historic conditions, were established in the North of Spain. The exemptions and territorial rights of the abbeys are typically feudal, and often the Papal Bulls merely confirm exemptions already existing, de facto.

The exemptions of (ecclesiastical) jurisdiction were abolished, with some exceptions, by the Concordat of 1851. The remaining were formally abolished by the Bull "Quo diversa" in 1873. But, before, in 1835, the dissolution of Religious Orders had closed the majority of abbeys, and only some of them were re-opened after.

-CT (Information from Bob Hilkens and Francisco Vasquez, with info from Teruel/Tejada)

av Webmaster publisert 08.09.2004, sist endret 08.09.2004 - 12:11