of inhabitants of Montauriol and serfs of the abbey formed the nucleus of the population. The monks protested, and in 1149 a satisfactory agreement was concluded. New ecclesiastical province Notwithstanding the sufferings of Montauban during the Albigensian wars, the Diocese of Toulouse grew rapidly. Pope John XXII, by the Bull Salvator (25 June 1317), separated the see of Toulouse from the ecclesiastical province of Narbonne, making the see of Toulouse an archiepiscopal see, and giving it four dioceses as suffragans that were created from within its territory: the Diocese of Montauban, the Diocese of St.-Papoul, the Diocese of Rieux, and the Diocese of Lombez. Bertrand de Puy, abbot at Montauriol, was first bishop of Montauban. Bishop Bertrand was consecrated in Avignon on 5 August, but, as he was making his way back to his new diocese, he died on the road. From 19 January 1361 to August 1369, Montauban, which had been occupied by John Chandos, Lieutenant-General of the King Edward III of England, was in the hands of the English. Cathedral and Chapter On 30 July 1317, in the Bull Nuper ex certis, Pope John freed the church of Montauban, which he had erected into a cathedral with a Chapter, from all other jurisdictions, in particular from the diocese of Toulouse, Cahors, Bourges, and Narbonne, and from the Benedictine Order. The monastery church of Montauriol, which became the Cathedral, had been dedicated to Saints Martin and Theodore. It was pillaged and burnt by the Protestants on 20 December 1561. Only one of the towers remained standing, and it was destroyed in 1567 for the sake of building materials for fortifications. The Chapter was composed of twenty-four Canons, to which were added some sixty other clerics, variously called hebdomadaries, prebendaries, or simply clerics. The Chapter was led by a pair of 'dignities' (not dignitaries): the Provost and the Major Archdeacon. In 1630, after the destruction of the Cathedral of Saint-Martin by the Protestants, the bishop united the Chapter with the Chapter of the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame, and that church, rededicated to Saint James, became the cathedral of the diocese. In 1674, after the Huguenot Wars, when Catholics were still outnumbered by Protestants by two-to-one, the destroyed cathedral of Montauban had three dignities, three persons, and eighteen Canons. The foundation stone of the present cathedral of the Assumption was laid in 1692. In 1762, the population had risen to c.