Chronology of Catholic Dioceses:Notes on the Abbey of San Cugat de Vallés

Notes on the Abbey of San Cugat de Vallés

This Benedictine Abbey within the present confines of the Archdiocese of Barcelona was originally founded about the Fourth Century, but was destroyed by the Arabs in 717. It was re-established in the beginnings of Ninth Century. The first Papal Bull of Exemption is from 1002. The abbey was closed in 1835, after the dissolution of the Religious Orders.

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)