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St. Columba's at Sens. In the thirteenth century Stephen Langton and later St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, also found refuge at Pontigny. The Benedictine Abbey of St-Michel at Tonnerre was founded about 800 on the site of a hermitage dating from the time of Clovis I; it was restored about 980 by Milo, Count of Tonnerre. In the fifteenth century Cardinal Alanus, legate of CaHistus III, numbered it among the twelve most illustrious abbeys of Gaul. The arrondissement of Avallon, now in the Diocese of Sens, and formerly dependent on the Diocese of Autun, possesses the celebrated monastery of Vezelay. It was founded about 860 under the protection of Christ and the Blessed Virgin by Gerard, Count of Roussillon and his wife, Bertha; Gerard declared the territory free and dependent only on the pope. Nich- olas I in 867 and Charles the Bald in 868 confirmed the donation. Eudes, the first abbot, offered hospi- tality to John VIII, who in 879 consecrated the first church of the monastery. The Norman invasions laid waste the monastery, but it was restored under Abbot Geoffrey, installed in 1037. Under this abbot the cultus of St. Magdalen appeared for the first time at Vezelay; a letter of Leo IX (10.50) shows that the name of St. Magdalen was part of the official title of the abbey. Mgr Duchesne has shown that the monks of Vezelay, at this date, constructed a first account according to which the tombs of Sts. Maximinus and Magdalen, at St-Maximin in Provence, had been opened and their bodies removed to Vezelay; shortly afterwards a second account relates that there was taken away only the body of St. Magdalen. For two centuries the account of the monks of V6zelay was accepted; Bulls of Lucius III, Urban III, and Clem- ent III confirmed the statement that they po.ssessed the body of St. .Magflalen. The tomb of the saint was visited in the twelfth century by a host of illus- trious pilgrims; "All France", wTi'tes Hugh of Poitiers, "seems to go to the solemnities of the Magdalen."

In 1096 Abbot Artaud, who was later assassinated, had begun the construction of the Basilica of the Madeleine, which was dedicated in 1104 by Paschal II; his successor, Renaud de Semur, later Arch- bishop of Lyons, completed it, raised it from its ruins after the great fire of July, 1120, and also built the abbatial ch&teau. Alberic, a monk of Cluny, named abbot by Innocent II, built in front of the portal the narthex, or church of the catechumens, the door- ways of which have marvellously wrought archivolts and which was blessed by Innocent II in 1132 during his sojourn at Vezelay; he died a cardinal and Arch- bishop of Ostia. Under Abbot Pontius of Mont- boisier (d. 1161), a former monk of Cluny, Vezelay emancipated itself from Cluniac nile, declared its autonomy as against the claims of the bishops of Autun, and victoriously resisted the encroachments of the counts of Nevers. The second crusade was preached in 1146 by St. Bernard in the abbatial chateau amid such enthusiasm that the assistants tore their gar- ments to make crosses and distribute them to the crowd. Guillaume IV of Nevers sought to be re- venged on the monks of Vezelay, and his provost, L6thard, defying excommunication, forced the monks to take flight, but in 1166 Louis arranged a peace be- tween the Comte de Nevers and Abbot Guillaume de Mello. On Pentecost, 1166, St. Thomas k Becket from the pulpit of Vezelay pronounced excommunica- tion against the clerics who, to gratify King Henry II of England, had violated the rights of the Church. Louis VII came himself to Vezelay at Epiphany, 1167, to celebrate the reconciliation between the monks of Vezelay and Count Guillaume IV, and in expiation of his crimes Guillaume IV set out for the Holy Land where he died in 116S.

Under the rule of Abbot Girard d'Arcy (1171-96), Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion met at Vezelay in July, 1190, to arrange for the third

crusade. In place of the Romanesque apse burnt in 1165, Girard had built the choir to-day admired as one of the most beautiful specimens of Burgundian architecture and falsely attributed to Abbot Hugh, his successor. St. Louis came to Vezelay in 1267 for a solemn feast organized by the monks for the recog- nition of the rehcs of St. Mary Magdalen and at which Simon de Brion, the future Martin IV, represented the Holy See as legate; St. Louis returned here in 1270 on his way to the crusade. This benevolence of the kings of P'rance and the constant menace which the abbey endured from the counts of Nevers led the monks of Vezelay and the pope to accept the act whereby Phihp the Bold in 1280 declared himself protector and guardian of the Abbey. Hugues de Maison-Comte, who became abbot in 1352 and was taken prisoner with John II of France at the battle of Poitiers, occupied himself after two years of cap- tivity in England with fortifying the monastery against an English attack; he rendered it impreg- nable and in gratitude Charles V made him a member of the royal council. The claims put forth by the Dominicans of Provence, beginning in 1279, that they possessed the body of St. Mary Magdalen injured the prestige of Vezelay during the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries. In 1538 a Bull of secularization sought from Paul III by Francis I and the monks them- selves transformed the abbey into a simple collegiate church. Odet de Chatillon, brother of Coligny and Abbot of Vezelay, subsequently became a Calvinist. The Huguenot masters of Vezelay converted the Madeleine into a storehouse and stable and burned the relics. During the Revolution the ancient monastery builflings were sold at auction. In 1876 the future Cardinal Bernadou, Archbishop of Sens, determined to restore the i)ilgrimage of St. Mary Magdalen at Vezelay and brought thither a relic of the saint which Martin IV had given to the Chapter of Sens in 1281.

A certain number of saints are honoured with a special cultus or are connected with the history of the diocese: St. Jovinian, martyr, lector of the church of Auxerre (third century); Sts. Sanctian, Augustine, Felix, Aubert, and Beata, Spaniards, martyred at Sens; St. Sidronius (Sidroine), possibly martyred under Aurelian, whose martyrdom is considered by the Bollandists as very doubtful; St. Justus, martyr, b. at Auxerre about the end of the third century; Sts. Magnentia and Maxima, virgins consecrated by St. Germain (fifth centur>'); St. Mamertinus, Abbot of St-Germain (fifty century); the priest St. Marien (sixth century); St. Romain, d. at the beginning of the sixth century in the monastery, which he founded in Auxerre, and in which St. Mauriis learned through a vision of the death of St. Benedict; St. Severin, d. at Chateau Landon, Diocese of Sens (506); St, Eligius (588-659), who administered the monastery of St. Columba before becoming Bishop of Noyon; St. Mathurin, a priest of Sens, d. 688; St. Patemus, a Benedictine, native of Coutances, monk at St- Pierre le Vif, and assassinated at Sergines (eighth century); St. Robert, Abbot of Tonnerre, founder of the Abbey, of Molesmes and of the Order of Citeaux (1018-1110); St. Thierry, Bishop of Orleans, reared at the monastery of St-Pierre le Vif, and d. in 1027 at Tonnerre; Bl. Alpaide, of Tonnerre (end of twelfth century); St. Guillaume, Archbishop of Bourges, previously a monk at Pontigny (d. in 1209). Jean Lebeuf (1687-1760), who in 1743 wTote the " Memoires contenant I'histoire ecclesiastique et civile d' Aux- erre", was a member of the Academy of Inscriptions.

The chief pilgrimages of the Diocese of Sens are: Notre Dame de Belle\aie at Tronchoy; Notre Dame de Champrond at Vinneuf ; the tomb of St. Columba at Sens; the altar of Sts. Savinian and Potentian at Sens, which according to legend is the stone on which St. Savinian fell. Before the application of