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 SOISSONS

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SOISSONS

Notre Dame de Soissons and of the Abbey of Re- thondes; 8t. Adolbortus (677-85); St. Gaudinus (685-707), assassinated by usurers; Rothadius (832- 869), famous for his quarrel with Hincmar (q. v.); Riculfus (884-902), whose pastoral issued in 889 is one of the greatest extant treasures of the ecclesiastical literature of the period; St. Arnoul de Pamela (1081- 1082), elected through the efforts of Hugues de Die, legate from Gregorj' VII, and who was disturbed in the possession of his see by two bishops nominated successively by Philip I; Jocelj-n de Vierzy (1126-52), who aided in the victory of Innocent II over the anti- pope Anacletus, and wrote an e.xplanation of the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer; Hugues de Champfleury (1159-75), chancellor of Louis VII; Gui de Chateau Porcien (1245-50), who accompanied St. Louis on the Crusade and was killed in Pales- tine; Languet de Gergj' (1715-30), who wrote the life of Mary Alacoque. In 1685 Louis XIV nomi- nated the famous lill&ateur Huet Bishop of Soissons, but the strained relations existing then between France and Rome prevented him from receiving his Briefs, and he exchanged that see for Avranches in 1689.

II. The See of Laon. — The Diocese of Laon was evangelized at an uncertain date by St. Beatus; the see was founded in 497 by St. Remi who out it off from Reims and made his nephew St. Genebaldus bishop. Among the bishops of Laon are: St. Chagnoaldus (c. 620-3), brother of St. Faro, Bishop of Meaux, and of St. Fara; Hincmar (8.57-76); Adalbero Aseelin (977-1030), driven from his see (981) b.v the Carlovingian Louis V who accused him of undue intimacy with Emma, widow of Lothaire, and who was afterwards very loyal to the interests of Hugh Capet, to whom lie handed over the Carlo- vingian Charles of Lorraine and Arnoul, Archbishop of Reims. He was the author of a satirical ])oeni ad- dressed to King Robert; Gaudri (1106-12), who held out against the commune movement, and who was slain in a brawl at Laon; Barthelemy de Jura, de Vir, or de Viry (1113-51), who attracted St. Norbert to the diocese; Gautier de Mortagne (115.5-74), author of six small theological treatises; Robert Le Cocq (13.52-8), who in October, 13.56, and March, 1357, after the imiirisonment of John II by the Eng- lish held an imjjortant position in the States General, took the side of Ste)ihen Marcel, conspired with hira and Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, against the dauphin, the future Charles V and then fled to Aragon, where he became Bishop of Calahorra; Pierre de Montaigiit (1371-86), cardinal in 1383; the historian Jean Juvenel des Ursins (1444-9), after- wards -Ajchbishoi) of Reims; Louis de Bourbon Vend6me (1510-52), cardinal in 1517; C(5sar d' Estrces (16.53-81), cardinal in 1672, was elected to the French Academy, and in Rome was involved in the difficulties between Louis XIV and Innocent XI, Alexander V'll I, and Irmocent XII; Jean de Roche- chouart de Faudojis (1741-77), cardinal in 1761. Louis Seguier, nominated by Henry IV, Bishop of Laon in 1.598, refused the nomination to make room for his young nephew Peter de Berulle, afterwards cardinal, and founder of the Oratorians; de Berulle refused the see.

The BishoiJ of Soissons as senior suffragan of Reims had the i)rivili'gc during a vacancy of the metro- politan see to rejilacc the ardibishop at the ceremony of anointing a King of France. The Bi.shop of Laon ranked as duke and peer from the twelfth century. As second ecclesiastical peer he had the privilege of holding the ampulla during the anointing of the king. The chapter of Laon w:is one of the most illustrious of the kingdom. From the twelfth cen- tury its members numbered eighty-four; it had to engage in bitter struggles with the communal regime; three popes, Urban 1\', Nicholas III, and Clement

VI, sixteen cardinals, and more than fifty arch- bishops and bishops belonged to it. Jacques Pan- taleon who became pope as Urban IV was a choir boy, then canon of the cathedral of Laon. He ar- ranged the cartularium of the church of Laon, and was commissioned by Gregory IX to settle the dispute between the chapter and Enguerrand de Coucy. As archdeacon of Laon he assisted, in 1245, at the Council of Lyons. Under the direction of St. Anselm of Laon (q. v.), appointed by Eugene III to restore theological studies in France, the school in connexion with the Laon cathedral drew young men from all parts of Europe.

The Abbey of St-M6dard at Soissons, founded in 557 by Clotaire I to receive the body of St. Medard,

The Cathedral, Laon*

was looked upon as the chief Benedictine Abbey in France; it held more than two hundred and twenty fiefs. Hilduin, abbot (822-30), in 826 obtained from Eugene II relics of St. Sebastian and St. Gregory the Great; he caused the relics of St. Godard and St. Remi to be transferred to the abbey; he rebuilt the church which was consecrated 27 Aug., 841, in the presence of Charles the Bald and seventy-two prel- ates. The king bore the body of St. M(^dard into the new basilica. The church was pulled down but rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1131 by Innocent II, who granted those visiting the church indulgences known as "St. MMard's pardons". In this abbey Louis the Pious was imprisoned in 833, and there he umler- went a public penance. Among the abbots of St. Medard are: St. Arnoul, who in 1081 became Bishop of Soissons; St. Gerard (clo.se of the eleventh cen- tury); Cardinal de Bernis, made commendatory abbot of St. Medard in 17.50. The Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame de Soissons was founded in 660 by Ebroin and his wife Leutrude. The Cis- tercian Abbey of Longpont, founded in 1131, counted among its monks the theologi.an Pierre Cantor (q. v.), who died in 1197, and Blessed John de Montrairail (116.5-1217), who abandoned the court of Philippe- .^uguste in order to become a monk. The abbey of St. \'incent at Laon was founded in 580 by Queen Brunehaut. Among its earlier monks were: St.