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 MENDE

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MENDEL

Mende, Diocese of (Mimatensis), includes tlio dp- part nient of Lozt^rc, in France. SulTrajran of UoiirKe.s under the old regime, it was re-established by the Con- cordat, of 1801 as a suffragan of Lyons and tmitetl with the department of Ardecho. The See of Mende lost tliis secorul department in 1822 by the creation of the Diocese of Viviers and became a suffragan of Albi. According to late legends belonging to the Limousin cycle of legends relating to St. Martial, he passed through the territory of the Gabali (Gevaudan) of ■nhich Mende is the capital, and appointed as its first bishop, St. 8everian his clisciple, about the begin- ning of the first century. (See Limoges.) The first bishop known to history is Saint I'rivatus, who according to Gregory of Tours, died in a grotto of Mount Mimmat, a victim of the ill treatment he suf- fered at the time of the invasion of the Alamanni under their King Chrocus. Gregory of Tours places_ this event about 260; though Fredegarius puts the inva- sion of Chrocus at 407. Mgr. Duchesne places the in- vasion of Chrocus and the death of St. Privatus at the beginning of the reign of Constantine, perhaps before the Council of Aries. It is certain that there was an organized church in the country of the Gabali from about 314, since in that year it was represented at the Council of Aries. We do not know the exact date of the episcopate of Saint Firminus whom the church of Mende honours to-day. Other bishops of the Gabali, who doubtless resided at Javoulx, near Mende,were: Saint Hilary, present at the Council of Auvergne in 535, and founder of the monastery of Canourgue, and whose personality has been wrongly described in cer- tain traditions concerning Saint Illier, and St. Fr^zal of Canourgue (ninth century) assassinated, it is said, under Louis le Debonnaire.

Towards the year 1000 Mende became the seat of the bishopric. Under Venerable Aldebert III (1151- 86), Alexander III passed some days at Mende in 1 162 ; Aldebert wrote two works, on the passion and on the miracles of St. Privatus, whose relics were discovered at Mende in 1170. M. Leopold Delisle has shown us the historical interest of these two works of this bishop. Mende had later as bishops, Guillaume Du- rand (1285-96), the author of "Speculum juris", and of the "Rationale divinorum omciorum", who was secretary of the general council of Lyons in 1270, and his nephew, Durand le Jeune (1296-1328) who, by the act called " Pariage", agreed upon with PhiHppe le Bel, definitively settled in Gevaudan the respective rights of king and bishop, and who left a work on the general councils and on the reform of abuses. Guil- laume de Grimoard, born about 1310 at the castle of Grisac near Jlende, was sickly and deformed, but was restored at the prayer of his godfather, St. Elz^ar de Sabran, who had come to baptize him. Elected pope in 1362 under the name of LTrban V, he administered the Diocese of Mende himself from 1368 to 70, as it had been left vacant by the removal of his nephew to the See of Avignon.

Among the bishops of Mende were: Guillaume de Chanac, who occupied the see but a few months, when he became cardinal in 1371; Pietro Riario (1473-74), nephew of Sixtus IV and a cardinal; Giuliano della Rovere (1478-83) later pope under the name of Julius II; and his nephews. Cardinal Clement della Rovere (1483-1504) and Francesco della Rovere (1504-24); Castellane (1768-92) massacred at Versailles, 9 Sept., 1792.

Urban 11 visited the Diocese of Mende in 1095 and had consecrated in his presence the church of the mon- astery of Saint Sauveur de Chirac or of Monastier founded in 1062 and dependent on the Abbey of Saint Victor. Mende was captured for the first time by the Huguenots in 1.562; the celebrated adventurer Merle fronr 1573-81 led into the region bands of Protestants who were masters of Mende for eighteen months, and destroyed a great part of the cathedral that Urban

V had caused to be rebuilt. The Diocese of Mendo was one of the regions where the insurrection of the Camisards (q. V.) broke out at the beginning of the eiglitcciith century. Cardinal Dominique dela Roche- foucauld, Archbishop of Rouen, who presided in 1789 over the last assembly of the clergy of France, was born in 1712 at Saint Ch^ly d'Apcher, in the dio- cese. The chemist Chaptal (1756-1832) was one of the last of those who profited by the scholarships founded by Urban V for twelve young students at Montpellier.

The following saints are specially venerated in the diocese: St. Ilpide, martyr (third century)^ the preacher St. Veran, Bishop of Cavaillon, a native of G(5\'avidan (sixth century) ; St. Lupentius, abbot of the basilica of St. Privatus, beheaded by order of Brune- haut whom he reproached for the irregularities of her life (sixth century) ; the nun St. Enimie, daughter of Clotaire II and sister of Dagobert (seventh century), foundress of a monastery of Benedictine nuns in the present St. Enimie. The principal pilgrimages of the diocese are: at Mende itself, Notre Dame de Mende where the statue of the Black Virgin was brought, per- haps in 1213, by the Crusaders of Gevaudan, and the hermitage of Saint Privatus ; Notre Dame de la Carce, the origin of the city of Marv(5jols; Notre Damede (Juezac, a pilgrimage dating from 1052 and where Urban V founded a chapter-house of eight canons, and Our Lady All-powerful, at Langogne. There were in the diocese, before the application of the law of associa- tions of 1901, various teaching orders of brothers and several teaching onlers of nuns of a local origin: the Sisters of Christian Unity (L'Union chr^tienne), founded in 1696 (mother-house at Mende) ; the United Sisters of the Holy Family, founded at Palhers in 1750, transferred to Mende in 1824; the Si-sters of Christian Doctrine (mother-house at Meyrueis) founded in 1837. The religious congregations in 1900 directed in the dio- cese fifteen infant schools, one orphan asylum for boys, four orphan asylums for girls, nine hospitals and alms- houses, twelve religious houses for the care of those ill at home, and one insane asylum. In 1905 at the end of the regime of the Concordat, the diocese had 128,- 866 inhabitants, 26 parishes, 191 succursal churches, and 135 vicarages, supported by the state.

Gallia Christiana (nova 1715), I, 83-110, 295-6; instrumenla, 23-7,202-3; Duchesne, Fas(cs episcopaui. 11,54-5 and 124- 6; Pascal, Gabalum christianum (Paris, 1853); Charbonnel, Origine et histoire aJbregie de Vcglise de Mende (Mende, 1859): Leopold Delisle, Un manuscrit de la cathedrale de Mende in Journal des Savanls (Oct., 1908); Ollier, Notice historique sur le Givavdan, ed. Remize (Mende, 1908); Idem, Histoiredea guerres de religion en Gevaudan aux 16", 77" et 18" sieclea (TouiB, 1886); Chevauer, Topobibl., 1902-3.

Georges Goyau.

Mendel, Mendelism. — Gregor Johann Mendel (the first name was taken on entrance to his order), b. 22 July, 1822, at Heinzendorf near Odrau, in Austrian Silesia; d. 6 January, 1884, at the Augustin- ian Abbey of St. Thomas, Briinn. His father was a small peasant-farmer, and the pecuniary resources of the family were very meagre, as is shown by the fact that a younger sister of Mendel's voluntarily gave up a large part of her dowry in order that the plans which his family had formed for his education might be carried out. The debt was afterwards repaid, and more than repaid, by Mendel. After a period of study at the school of Leipnik, Mendel dis- tinguished himself so much that his parents made a great effort and sent him to the gjnnnasium at Trop- pau, and subsequently, for a year, to Olmiitz. At the former place one of his teachers was an Augus- tinian, and, whether post or propter hoc, at the end of his period of study at the gymnasium Mendel applied to be admitted as a novice in the Abbey of St. Thomas at Brunn, commonly known as the "Kiinigskloster". This was in 1843, and in 1847 he was ordained priest and seems to have occupied