archbishop of Narbonne

The former Catholic diocese of Narbonne existed from early Christian times until the French Revolution. It was an archdiocese, with its see at Narbonne, from the year 445, and its influence ran over much of south-western France and into Catalonia. Diminished by the creation of other dioceses in 1317, its territory was merged under the Concordat of 1801 into the diocese of Carcassonne. The title Archbishop of Narbonne, however, belongs to the Archbishop of Toulouse. An attempt after the Restoration to re-establish the see was defeated in the French parliament, with the result that a new metropolitan see was created for the Languedoc region at Montpellier in 2002.