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 POITIERS

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POITIERS

dietines of Ligug6, driven out in 1880, took refuge at Silos in Spain; the abbey in after years became once more a religious centre, but the Associations Law of 1901 again forced the monks into exile at Chevetogne in Belgium. Another important monastery was that of Ansion, or St. Jouin of Marne, founded before 500, and subsequently placed under the Rule of St. Bene- dict. St. Generosus, St. Paternus (Pair), afterwards Bishop of Avranches, his friend St. Scubilio, and St. Aiehard, afterwards Abbot of Jumieges, were all monks of Ansion. A Benedictine abbey founded in 785 by Roger, Count of Limoges, and his wife Eu- phrasia, was the origin of the town of Charroux, and was enriched with many gifts by Charlemagne. The

V Saint-Pierre, Poitiers t;tiiu- on the Ruins XII Century

Abbey of St. Savin-sur-Gartempe was founded by Charlemagne. Its church and crypt, studied in 18.30 by Prosper Merimee, dates from the eleventh centurj', and possesses a series of frescoes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries representing the history of the world from the creation until Moses, and the martyrdom of SS. Savinus and CjTJrian, which are unique in the history of French mural painting. The church of St. Peter of Chauvigny (eleventh and twelfth centuries) has some admirable sculpture work; and the town of Poitiers is a veritable museum of religious art. Parts of the baptistery of St. John, recentlj^ studied with care by the Jesuit archwologi-st, P. de la Croix, date from the fourth century; and there is evidence that in the time of Const antine baptism by i mm ersion was practised in Poitiers.

The church founded in the fourth century by St. Hilary in honour of SS. John and Paul, martyrs and where St. Hilary was buried, was afterwards dedicated to St. Hilary, and reconstructed in the eleventh cen- tury by Emma, Queen of England and mother of Edward the Confessor, and by her architect Gautier Coorland. The vaulting of the seven naves of this building, known to-day as St. Hilary the Great, re- minds one of Byzantine cupolas, and is an imposing sight. The church of St. Radegunde, which has a Roman apse (eleventh ccnturj') and a Gothic nave (twelfth century), rises on the site of a church founded in the sixth century in honour of the virgin queen St. Radegunde, who retired to the monastery of Ste. Croix. In the crypt is her tomb, and facing it a statue of the saint, an "ex voto" of Anne of Austria in 1658, for the cure of her son Louis XIV. The church of Notre Dame la Grande h;i.s a twelfth-cen- tury facade, which, to a height of fifty-six and a breadth of forty-eight feet, is completely covered with Romanesque carvings at one time polychrome. The cathedral, St. Peter's, is a beautiful Gothic building begun in the second half of the twelfth century under

the reign of Henry II Plantagenet of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and consecrated 18 October, 1379. The Hotel de Ville of Poitiers contains some frescoes, masterpieces of Puvis de Chavannes; they represent the victorious arrival of Charles Martel at Poitiers, and Fortunatus reading his poems to St. Radegunde. Among councils held at Poitiers are those of: 590, in which the Prankish princess and nun, Chrodielda, was excommunicated for revolt against her abbess; 1074, which dealt with the matrimonial affairs of William, Count of Poitiers, and to which the Bishop of Poitiers, Isambert, came with a troop of soldiers and dispersed the members; 1075, which dealt with the heresy of Berengarius, and at which Giraud was papal legate; 1078, in which the papal legate Hugues passed laws against simony; 1100, in \vh\ch Bishop Norgaud of Autun was deposed for simony, Philip I of France and his concubine Bertrade were excommunicated, and the bishops narrowly escaped being stoned by the order of the Count of Poitiers, who was displeased with their decision; 1 106, at which a crusade was proclaimed. The Synod of 1808, assembled to celebrate the fifteenth centenary of St. Hilary's death, was attended by representatives from every part of the ecclesiastical province of Bordeaux. Five councils were held at Charroux in the diocese; that of 1027 legislated against the spread of Manichsism, and was concerned with the "Pax Dei", or Truce of God.

Poitiers is rich in historical souvenirs. The neigh- Ijourhood of Poitiers was the scene of two famous battles, that of October, 732, in which Charles Martel defeated Abd-el-Raman and definitively saved France from Saracen invasion, and that of September, 1356, in which the Kmg of France, John II, the Good, was made prisoner by the English. In the convent of the Cordeliers at Poitiers dwelt for sixteen months (June, 1307-8) Pope Clement V, while Philip IV, the Fair, of France dwelt with the Jacobins. Jacques Molay and seventy-two Templars were questioned by Clement V at Poitiers. In 1428 when the English held the country north of the Loire, Poitiers was more or less the headquarters of Charles VII, and thither in March, 1429, went Blessed Jeanne d'Arc to see Charles VII and be questioned concerning her mission. The con- vent of the Calvarians was founded in 1617 by Antoinette d'Orleans, under the inspiration of the Capuchin Francis Le Clerc du Tremblay. "Poitiers, a town full of priests and monks", wrote La Fontaine in 1633, during a journey through Poitou. The portion of the diocese which lies in the Department of Deux-Se\Tes was greatly disturbed during the six- teenth century by the Wars of Religion and under the French Revolution by the Wars of La Vendee. Among natives of the diocese are: Cardinal Jean Balue; the Sainte-Marthes (see G.'^LLi.i Christiana); Filleau de la Bouchetterie (1600-82), who, in 1654, accused Saint-CvTan, Jansenius, and four other Jansenists, with having at a meeting in 1621, discussed the means of substituting Deism for Catholicism; Mme de Maintenon; the Protestant theologian, Isaac Beau- sobre (16.59-1738), the historian of Manichaeism. Urbain Grandier was cure of Loudun in the diocese and after a famous trial was burned to death there (18 August, 1634) on the charge of having bewitched the Ursulines of Loudun. Besides St. Radegunde, the great saint of the diocese, and the saints already named the diocese especially venerates: St. Abra, daughter of St. Hilary; St. Leonius (Liene), friend of St. Hilary; St. Justus, priest, who was designated as his successor by St. Hilary, but who refused the honour (fourth century); SS. Savinus and Cyprian, apostles of Poitou, martyred by the Huns in 438; St. Maxentius (d. 515), founder of a monastery between Niort and Poitiers, whence arose the town of St, Maixent; St. Fridolinus, an Irishman, abbot of St. Hilary's of Poitiers (d. c. 540) ; St. Lubin, Bishop of