Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/217

 POITIERS

179

POITIERS

Church of Notrl-D.

Among his successors were St. Pientius (c. 544-60); St. Fortunatus (c. 599); St. Peter (1087-1115), exiled by William IX, Count of Poitiers, whose divorce he refused to sanction; Gilbert de la Porree (1142-54); Blessed William Tempier (1184-97), who, as Mgr Barbier de Montault has shown, was irregularly ven- erated as a saint in certain parts of the diocese since he died subsequent to the declaration of Alex- ander III which re- served canonizations to the Holy See; Blessed Gauthier de Bruges (1278-1306); Arnauld d'Aux (1306 -12), made cardinal in 1312; Guy de Malsec (1371-5), wh. I became cardinal in 1375; Simon lU- Cramaud^ (1385-91'. indefatigable fip- ponent of the anti- pope, Benedict XIII, and who again ad- ministered the dio- cese (1413-23) and became cardinal in 1413; Louis de Bar (1394-5), cardinal in 1397; Jean de la Tremouille (150.5-7), cardinal in 1507; Gabriel de Gramont (1532-4), cardinal in 1507; Claude de Longwy, Cardinal de Gi%Ty (1538-52), became car- dinal in 1533; Antonio Barberini (1652-7), cardinal in 1627; Abbe de Pradt (1805-9), afterwards Arch- bishop of Mechlin, Pie (1849-80), car- dinal in 1879. St. Emmeram (q. v.) was a native of Poitiers, but accord- ing to the Bollandists and Mgr Duchesne the documents which make him Bishop of of Poitiers (c. 650) are not trustworthy; on the other hand Bernard Sepp (Ana- lec. Boll., VIII) and Dom Chamard claim that he did hold the see, and succeeded Didon, bishop about 666 or 668 according to Dom Chamard.

As early as 312 the Bishop of Poitiers established a school near his cathedral; among its scholars were St. Hilary, St. Maxen- tius, Bishop Maximus of Trier, and his two brothers St. Maximinus of Chinon and St. Jouin of Marne, St. Paulinus, Bishop of Trier, and the poet Ausonius. In the sixth century Fortunatus taught there, and in the twelfth century intellectual Europe flocked to Poitiers to sit at the feet of Gilbert de la Porree. Charles VII erected a university at Poitiers, in op- position to Paris, where the majority of the faculty had hailed Henry VI of England, and by Bull of 28 May, 1431, Eugene IV approved the new university. In the reign of Louis XII there were in Poitiers no less than four thousand students — French, Italians, Flemings, Scots, and Germans. There were ten

(Facade, XII Century)

colleges attached to the university. In 1540, at the College Ste. Marthe, the famous Marc Antoine Muret, whom Gregory XIII called in later years the torch and the pillar of the Roman School, had a chair. The famous Jesuit Maldonatus and five of his con- freres went in 1570 to Poitiers to establish a Jesuit college at the request of some of the in- habitants. After two unsuccessful at- tempts, they were gi\ en the College Ste. M art he in 1605. Pere Garasse, well known for his vio- lent polemics and who died of the plague at Poitiers in 1637, was professor there (1607-8), and had as a pupil the grc at French prose vniter, Guez de Bal- zac Among other -itudents at Poitiers were Achille de Har- la^, President de Thou, the poet Joachim du Bellay, the chronicler, Bran-

Baptistlr\ of 6\ (Merovingian

tome Descartes, Viete the mathematician, and Bacon, afterwards Chancellor of England. In the seven- teenth century the Jesuits sought affiliation with the university and in spite of the lively opposition of the faculties of theology and arts their request was granted. Jesuit ascendancy grew; they united to Ste. Marthe the Col- lege du Puygareau. Friction between them and the uni- versity was continu- ous, and in 1762 the general laws against them throughout France led to the Society leaving Poi- tiers. Moreover, from 1674 the Jesuits had conducted at Poitiers a college for clerical students from Ireland. In 1806 the State reopened the school of law at Poi- tiers and later the faculties of litera- ture and science. These faculties were raised to the rank of a university in ISOb From 1872 to 1S75 Cardinal Pie was engaged in re- establishing the fac- ulty of theology. As a provisional effort he called to teach in his Grand Seminaire three professors from the CoUegio Romano, among them Pere Schrader, the com- mentator of the Syllabus, who died at Poitiers in 1875. At Ligug(5 in the diocese, St. Martin founded the first monastery in Gaul, to which were attached a catechetical school and a baptistery. This monastery, afterwards eclipsed by that of Marmoutiers founded by St. Martin near Tours, was destroyed by the Nor- mans in 865, and was later a simple priory depending on the Abbey of Maillezais, and still later belonged to the Jesuits. In 1853 the Benedictines settled in Liguge and in 1856 it became an abbey. The Bene-