The following is a history of Avignon, France.
Prehistory
The site of Avignon has been occupied since the Neolithic period as shown by excavations at Rocher des Doms and the Balance district.Tell me about Avignon , Towens and Country of Art and history, Ministry of Culture, consulted on 17 October 2011
In 1960 and 1961 excavations in the northern part of the Rocher des Doms directed by Sylvain Gagnière uncovered a small anthropomorphic stele (height: 20 cm), which was found in an area of land being reworked. Carved in Burdigalian sandstone, it has the shape of a "tombstone" with its face engraved with a highly stylized human figure with no mouth and whose eyes are marked by small cavities. On the bottom, shifted slightly to the right is a deep indentation with eight radiating lines forming a solar representation - a unique discovery for this type of stele.
Compared to other similar solar figures this stele representing the "first Avignonnais" and comes from the time period between the Copper Age and the Early Bronze Age which is called the southern Chalcolithic.
This was confirmed by other findings made in this excavation near the large water reservoir on top of the rock where two polished greenstone axes were discovered, a lithic industry characteristic of "shepherds of the plateaux". There were also some Chalcolithic objects for adornment and an abundance of Hallstatt pottery shards which could have been native or imported (Ionian or Phocaean).
Antiquity
The name of the city dates back to around the 6th century BC. The first citation of Avignon (Aouen(n)ion) was made by Artemidorus of Ephesus. Although his book, The Journey, is lost it is known from the abstract by Marcian of Heraclea and The Ethnics, a dictionary of names of cities by Stephanus of Byzantium based on that book. He said: "The City of Massalia (Marseille), near the Rhone, the ethnic name (name from the inhabitants) is Avenionsios (Avenionensis) according to the local name (in Latin) and Auenionitès according to the Greek expression".Étienne de Byzance, The Ethnics in summary, Aug. Meineke, Berlin, 1849 This name has two interpretations: "city of violent wind" or, more likely, "lord of the river". The Celtic tribes named it Auoention around the beginning of the Christian Era. Other sources trace its origin to the Gallic mignon ("marshes") and the Celtic definitive article.History of the origin of the name , Avignon official website, consulted on 17 October 2011
Avignon was a simple Greek Emporium founded by Phocaeans from Marseille around 539 BC. It was in the 4th century BC that the Massaliotes (people from Marseilles) began to sign treaties of alliance with some cities in the Rhone valley including Avignon and Cavaillon. A century later Avignon was part of the "region of Massaliotes" or "country of Massalia".
Fortified on its rock, the city later became and long remained the capital of the Cavares.Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia and Pomponius Mela in his Of Choregraphia depicted Avignon as the capital of Cavares. With the arrival of the Roman legions in 120 BC. the Cavares, allies with the Massaliotes, became Roman. Under the domination of the Roman Empire, Aouenion became Avennio and was now part of Gallia Narbonensis (118 BC.), the first Transalpine province of the Roman Empire. Very little from this period remains (a few fragments of the forum near Rue Molière). It later became part of the 2nd Viennoise. Avignon remained a "federated city" with Marseille until the conquest of Marseille by Trebonius and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, Caesar's lieutenants. It became a city of Roman law in 49 BC.The Origins of Avignon, horizon-provence website, consulted on 17 October 2011 It acquired the status of Roman colony in 43 BC. Pomponius Mela placed it among the most flourishing cities of the province.Pomponius Mela, Description of the World, Book II, V.
Over the years 121 and 122 the Emperor Hadrian stayed in the Province where he visited Vaison, Orange, Apt, and Avignon. He gave Avignon the status of a Roman colony: "Colonia Julia Hadriana Avenniensis" and its citizens were enrolled in the tribu.French article on the Tribu
Following the passage of Maximian, who was fighting the Bagaudes, the Gallic peasants revolted. The first wooden bridge was built over the Rhone linking Avignon to the right bank. It has been dated by dendrochronology to the year 290. In the 3rd century there was a small Christian community outside the walls around what was to become the Abbey of Saint-Ruf.
Christianity
Although the date of the Christianization of the city is not known with certainty, it is known that the first evangelizers and prelates were within the hagiographic tradition which is attested by the participation of Nectarius, the first historical Bishop of Avignon on 29 November 439, in the regional council in the Cathedral of Riez assisted by the 13 bishops of the three provinces of Arles.
The memory of St. Eucherius still clings to three vast caves near the village of Beaumont where, it is said, the people of Lyon had to go in search of him in 434 when they sought him to make him their archbishop.
In November 441 Nectarius of Avignon, accompanied by his deacon Fontidius, participated in the Council of Orange convened and chaired by Hilary of Arles where the Council Fathers defined the right of asylum. In the following year, together with his assistants Fonteius and Saturninus, he was at the first Council of Vaison with 17 bishops representing the Seven Provinces. He died in 455.
Early Middle Ages
Invasions began and during the inroads of the Goths it was heavily damaged. In 472 Avignon was sacked by the Burgundians and replenished by the Patiens, from the city of Lyon, who sent them wheat.
In 500 Clovis I, King of the Franks, attacked Gundobad, King of the Burgundians who was accused of the murder of the father of his wife Clotilde. Beaten, Gondebaud left Lyon and took refuge in Avignon with Clovis besieging it. Gregory of Tours reported that the Frankish king devastated the fields, cut down the vines and olive trees, and destroyed the orchards. The Burgundian was saved by the intervention of the Roman General Aredius. He had called him to his aid against the "Frankish barbarians" who ruined the countryside.
In 536 Avignon, following the fate of Provence, was ceded to the Merovingians by Vitiges, the new king of the Ostrogoths. Chlothar I annexed Avignon, Orange, Carpentras, and Gap; Childebert I took Arles and Marseilles; Theudebert I took Aix, Apt, Digne, and Glandevès. The Emperor Justinian I at Constantinople approved the division.
Despite all the invasions, intellectual life continued to flourish on the banks of the Rhône. Gregory of Tours noted that after the death of Bishop Antoninus in 561 the Parisian Father Dommole refused the bishopric of Avignon after Chlothar I convinced him that it would be ridiculous "in the middle of tired senators, sophists, and philosophical judges"
St. Magnus was a Gallo-Roman senator who became a monk and then bishop of the city. His son, St. Agricol (Agricolus), bishop between 650 and 700, is the patron saint of Avignon.
The 7th and 8th centuries were the darkest period in the history of Avignon. The city became the prey of the Franks under Theuderic II, King of Austrasia in 612. The Council of Chalon-sur-Saône in 650 was the last to indicate the Episcopal participation of the Provence dioceses. In Avignon there would be no bishop for 205 years with the last known holder being Agricola.
In 734 it fell into the hands of the Saracens, and it was destroyed in 737 by the Franks under Charles Martel for having sided with the Saracens against him.
A centralized government was put in place and, in 879, the bishop of Avignon, Ratfred, with other Provençal colleagues, went to the Synod of Mantaille in Viennois where Boso was elected King of Provence after the death of Louis the Stammerer.
The Rhône could again be crossed since in 890 part of the ancient bridge of Avignon was restored at the pier No. 14 near Villeneuve. In that same year Louis, the son of Boson, succeeded his father. His election took place in the Synod of Varennes near Macon. Thibert, who was his most effective supporter, became Count of Apt. In 896 Thibert acted as plenipotentiary of the king at Avignon, Arles, and Marseille with the title of "Governor-General of all the counties of Arles and Provence". Two years later, at his request, King Louis donated Bédarrides to the priest Rigmond d'Avignon.
On 19 October 907 King Louis the Blind became emperor and restored an island in the Rhone to Remigius, Bishop of Avignon. This charter is the first mention of a cathedral dedicated to Mary.
After the capture and the execution of his cousin, Louis III, who had been exiled to Italy in 905, Hugh of Arles became regent and personal advisor to King Louis. He exercised most of the powers of the king of Provence and in 911, when Louis III gave him the titles of Duke of Provence and Marquis of the Viennois,Mc Kitterick, 267. he left Vienne and moved to Arles which was the original seat of his family and which now was the new capital of Provence.
On 2 May 916 Louis the Blind restored the churches of Saint-Ruf and Saint-Géniès to the diocese of Avignon. On the same day Bishop Fulcherius attested in favour of his canons and for the two churches of Notre-Dame and Saint-Étienne to form a cathedral.
A political event of importance took place in 932 with the reunion of the kingdom of Provence with Upper Burgundy. This union formed the Kingdom of Burgundy in which Avignon was one of the largest cities.
At the end of the 9th century, Muslim Spain installed a military base in Fraxinet since they had led the plundering expeditions in the Alps throughout the 10th century.
During the night of 21 to 22 July 972 the Muslims took dom Mayeul, the Abbot of Cluny who was returning from Rome, prisoner. They asked for one livre for each of them which came to 1,000 livres, a huge sum, which was paid to them quickly. Maïeul was released in mid-August and returned to Cluny in September.
In September 973 William I of Provence and his brother Rotbold, sons of the Count of Avignon, Boso II, mobilized all the nobles of Provence on behalf of dom Maïeul. With the help of Ardouin, Marquis of Turin, and after two weeks of siege, Provençal troops chased the Saracens from their hideouts in Fraxinet and Ramatuelle as well as those at Peirimpi near Noyers in the Jabron valley. William and Roubaud earned their title of Counts of Provence. William had his seat at Avignon and Roubaud at Arles.
In 976 while Bermond, brother-in-law of Eyric was appointed Viscount of Avignon by King Conrad the Peaceful on 1 April, the Cartulary of Notre-Dame des Doms in Avignon says that Bishop Landry restored rights that had been unjustly appropriated to the canons of Saint-Étienne. He gave them a mill and two houses he built for them on the site of the current Trouillas Tower at the papal palace. In 980 these canons were constituted in a canonical chapter by Bishop Garnier.
In 994 Dom Maïeul arrived in Avignon where his friend William the Liberator was dying. He assisted in his last moments on the island facing the city (the Île de la Barthelasse) on the Rhone. The Count had as successor the son he had by his second wife Alix. He would reign jointly with his uncle Rotbold under the name William II. In the face of County and episcopal power, the town of Avignon organized itself. Towards the year 1000 there was already a proconsul Béranger with his wife Gilberte who are known to have founded an abbey at "Castrum Caneto".