Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/219

 POLA

181

POLAND

Chartres, native of Poitou (d. 556); St. Junianus, director of St. Radegunde, founder and first abbot of the monastery of Maire-l'Evescault (d. 587); St. Agnes (d. 588); St. Disciola (d. 583), abbess and nun of Ste. Croix; St. Leger, Abbot of St. Maxentius and afterwards Bishop of Autun (616-678) ; St. Adelelmus (Alleaume), Abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, Prior of Burgos (d. 1097), a native of Loudun; St. William of Aqui- taine, Count of Poitiers (1099-1137), excommunicated as a partisan of the Schism of Anacletus, and con- verted by St. Bernard ; and Blessed Francis d'Amboise (d. 1485), whose father was Viscount de Thouars; Blessed Th^ophane V6nard, missionary, martyred in Tonkin in 1861, born at St. Loup-sur-Thouet in the Diocese of Poitiers; Ven. Charles Cornay, mission- ary in China, martyred in 1839, a native of Loudun.

The chief shrines of the diocese are: Notre-Dame la Grande, or Notre-Dame des Clefs at Poitiers, a place of pilgrimage since the thirteenth century; Notre-Dame de I'Agenouillde at .4zay-sur-Thouet, a place of pilgrimage since the middle of the sixteenth century; Notre-Dame de Pitie, near the Chapelle St. Laurent, a celebrated place of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages; Notre-Dame de Beauchene, at Cerizay, a place of pilgrimage since the twelfth century. Many pilgrims are also drawn by the chapel built at Ligug6 on the site of the cell of a catechumen whom St. Martin brought to life in order to baptize him, by the crypt of St. Radegunde at Poitiers, and by the church at Mar^ay, built in 1884, the first church to be dedicated to St. Benedict Labre. Before the applica- tion of the Associations Law of 1901 there were in the Diocese of Poitiers, Augustinians of the Assumption, Jesuits, Dominicans, Canons Regular of St. Augustine and many congregations of teaching brothers, a house of Picpus Fathers, who were founded at Poitiers early in the nineteenth century by the Venerable Pere Coudrin, and who afterwards changed their parent- house to Paris. Many important congregations of women originated in the diocese: The Daughters of the Cross known as Sisters of St. Andrew (mother- house at La Puye), a nursing and teaching order, established in 1807 by Ven. Andre-Hubert Fournet, pastor of St. Pierre-de-Maill6, and his penitent, Elisabeth Biehier des Ages; this congregation has houses in Spain and Italy; the Sisters of the Immacu- late Conception, a teaching order founded in 1854 by Pere Pecot with mother-house at Niort; the Sisters of St. Philomena, a teaching order founded in the middle of the nineteenth century by Abb6 Gaillard with mother-house at Salvert. At the beginning of the twentieth century the religious congregations in the diocese had charge of 44 nurseries, 1 school for the blind, 2 schools for deaf and dumb, 1 orphanage for boys, 7 orphanages for girls, 13 hospitals, 1 home for incurables, 1 lunatic asylum, 2 houses of retreat, and 6 district nursing homes. In 1905, at the breach of the Concordat, the Diocese of Poitiers had 684,808 in- habitants, 69 parishes, 574 auxiliary parishes, and 97 curacies maintained by the State.

Gallia Christiana, nova, II (1720), 1136-1221: instr. 325-80; Cramard, Hist. EccUsiastique du Poitou (3 vois., Poitiers, 1874, 1880, 1890); Auber, Hist. gin. civile religieuse et litteraire du Poitou (8 vols., Poitiers, 1885-8); Cherg£, Les vies des saints du Poitou (Poitiers, 1856) ; Barrier de Montault, (Euvres com- pletes. IX (Poitiers. 1894) ; Beauchet-Filleau, Pouille du Dio- cese de Poitiers (Poitiers, 1869): Chamard, St Martin et son monastire de Ligugi (Poitiers, 1873); Boyle, The Irish College in Paris with a brief recount of other Irish Colleges in France (London, 1901); RoBccHON, Paysages et monuments du Poitou (2 vols., Paris. 1903) ; Richard, Hist, des comtes de Poitou (2 vols., Paris, 1903): DE LA Croix, Etude sommaire du baptisthe St. Jean de Poitiers (Poitiers. 1903) ; Idem, Les origines des anciens monuments religieux de Poitiers (1906) ; Idem. La Chapelle St. Sixte et les ca- thidrales de Poitiers (1907); Lef^vre Pontalis, St. Hilaire de Poitiers, etude archeologique (Caen, 1905); M^RiM^E, Notes d'un voyage dans I'ouesl de la France (Paris, 1836) : de la MAUVlNlfeRE, Poitiers et Angoutime, St. Savin, Chauvigny (Paris, 1908); FouR- NIER, Statuts des Universit^s franQaises, III (Paris, 1892), 283-335; PiLOTELLE, Essai histor. sur I'ancienne university de Poitiers in Mimoires de la SociHe des antiquaires de Vouest, XXVII (1863) : Dartioes, Notes sur I' Universite de Poitiers in Bulletin de la facuM

des lettres de Poitiers (1883); DELFOriR, Les Jesuites d Poitiers 1604-1762 (Paris. 1902). GeORGES GoYAU.

Pola. See Parenzo and Pola, Diocese of.

Poland. — I. Geography. — The western part of the Sarmatian Plain together with the northern slopes of the Carpathians, i. e. the territory included between lat. 46° and 59° N., and between long. 32° and 53° E. of Ferro, with an area of about 435,200 square miles (twice as large as Germany), constituted the former Kingdom of Poland. Very likely Poland received its name on account of its extensive plains (in Polish the word for "field", or "plain", is ■pole), which are the characteristic feature of its topography. As an inde- pendent country (i. e., until the year 1772), Poland was bounded on the north by the Baltic Sea, on the east by the Russian Empire, on the south by the do- minions of the Tatars and Hungary, on the west by Bohemia and Prussia. The rivers of Poland flow either to the north and west, and empty into the Bait ic, or flow south into the Black Sea. The rivers that empty into the Baltic are the Oder, Vistula, Niemen, and the western DUna; those that empty into the Black Sea are the Dniester, Boh (Bug), and Dnieper. The climate is universally temperate, and the four seasons are sharply defined. The chief industry has always been agriculture, and little account has ever been made of either commerce or manufactures, al- though the country was situated on the direct line of communication between Europe and Asia.

The various divisions, by the union of which the Kingdom of Poland was formed, still bear their orig- inal names. They are: (1) Great Poland, in the basin of the Warthe. Cities: (3nesen, Posen on the Warthe; (2) Kujavia, north of Great Poland, at the foot of the Baltic ridge to the left of the Vistula. City: Brom- berg; (3) Little Poland, the basin of the upper and middle Vistula. Cities: Cracow, Sandomir, Czen- stochowa, Radom; (4) Silesia, at the headwaters of the Vistula and on the upper Oder, belonged to Poland only until the year 1335. Capital: Breslau; (5) Masovia, in the basin of the middle Vistula. Capital: Warsaw; (6) Pomerania, between the Baltic Sea, the Vistula and Netze. Cities: Kolberg and Danzig; (7) Prussia, originally the country between the Baltic, the Vistula, the Niemen and the Drewenz. Cities: Thorn, Marienburg, and Konigsberg; (8) Podlachia, on the rivers Narew, and Bug. City: Bjelsk; (9) Polesia, in the valley of the Pripet. City: Pinsk; (10) Volhynia, in the basin of the rivers Styr, Horyn, and Slucz. Cities: Vladimir and Kamenetz;

(11) Red Russia, on the Dniester, San, Bug, and Prut. Cities: Sanok, Przemysl, Lemberg, and Kolomyia;

(12) PodoHa, in the basin of the Strypa, Seret, Sbrucz, and upper Boh. Cities: Kamenetz, on the Smotrycz, Mohileff, on the Dniester, Buczacz; (13) The Ukraine, east of the Dniester in the basin of the Bug and Dnieper. Cities: Kieff, Zhitomir, Poltava, Oczakow, and Cherson; (14) White Russia, on the upper Dnieper, DUna, and Niemen. Cities: Minsk, Vitebsk, and Polotsk; (15) Lithuania, on the middle Niemen, extending to the Duna. Cities: Vilna, Grodno, Kovno; (16) Samland, to the right of the lower Niemen. City: Worme; (17) Courland, on the Gulf of Riga, with the city of Mitau, belonged to Poland only indirectly; (18) Livonia, on the Gulf of Riga, and Esthonia, on the Gulf of Finland, belonged to Poland for a short time only.

Poland was, for the most part, populated by Poles; after the union of Lithuania with Poland were added Ruthenians and Tatars, and furthermore, though in no considerable numbers, Jews, Germans, Ar- menians, Gipsies, and Letts. As a matter of fact, the Poles inhabited the whole of Great Poland, Lit- tle Poland, and a part of Lithuania, as well as part of the Ruthenian territory. Moreover, the nobility, the urban population, and the upper and better edu-