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 TARBES

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TARBES

windows the Gothic gives place to the I'latcresque, but in the side chapels dedicated to St. Lawrence, St. Andrew, the Rosary, St. Peter, the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, the Annunciation, St. Elizabeth, the Purification, and St. James, the Gothic prevails in the reredos and mausoleums. Bishop Moncada attempted to rebuild the beautiful cloister which had been destroyed in the war with Castile, but as late as 1.529 this had not been completed. Besides the Chiu-ch of the Magdalen, the Church of St. Michael, with its simple Gothic nave and that of the Con- ception nuns, are also notable. The Church of St. Francis is said to have been founded by St. Francis himself in 1214, and Cisneros was consecrated Bishop of Toledo in the Chapel of La Piedad in 149.5.

The episcopal palace, the ancient Azuda, is built upon a commanding eminence and has a beautiful view. Bishop Calvillo purchased this from the Aragonese governor, Jorddn Perez de Urrles, in 1386, and entailed it to the bishopric. The diocesan semi- nary, dedicated to St. Gaudiosus, was founded in 1593 by Bishop Cerbuna. It has recently been ex- tensively renovated. Mention should be made of the monastery of Nuestra Senora de Veruela, a Cistercian abbey founded by Pedro de Atares, and now a Jesuit novitiate; also of the Church of Borja, ranking as a collegiate church since the time of Nicholas V (1449), favoured and protected by Alex- ander VI; and of the ancient collegiate church of Calatayud, Santa Maria de MediaviUa, whose priors ranked as mitred deans.

DE L\ FuEXTE, Espafla Sagrada, XLIX. L (Madrid. 1865); CCADRADO. Ei'pafia, Stis monumentos (Barcelona, 1SS4): Akgaiz, Soledad laureada y tea!rn monastico de Tarazona, the most com- plete history of this dioce.se.

Ramon Rdiz Amado.

Tttrbes, Diocese of (Tarbia), comprises the De- partment of the Hautes-Pyr^nees (ancient territory of Bigorre), included in 1802 in the Diocese of Bay- onne, re-estab- lished theoretically by the Concordat of 1S17 and actu- allv by the Bull of 6 October, 1822. The new Diocese of Tarbes lost twenty-one p a r - ishes which were added to the Dio- cese of Bayonne, and twenty to the Archdiocese of Audi; but the par- ishes of the country of the Quatre Val- ines and of the Vallee de Louron, formerly part of the archdiocese of Auch and the bishopric of Comminge.s, were reunited to the Diocese of Tarbes, suffragan of Auch. Tradition has preserved the names of St. Girinus and St. Evex or Erex, as the first martjTs of Bigorre. The district was laid waste by the Vandals, who were afterwards put to flight by St. Missolinus, a priest; it was dis- turbed by the Priscillianist heresy and finally terror- ized by the Arian Visigoths, who, in the reign of Ewarik, waged a bloody persecution against the clergy. Mgr Duchesne considers St. Justin whom the "Gallia Christiana" cites as the first in the list of bisho|)S of Tarbes, to have been oidy a prie.st, and excludes from that list St. Faustus, who, in his opinion, is none other than the celebrated Faustus of Riez. He considers Aper, represented at the Council of Agde in 506, as the first historically known bishop of the see. Among the successors are cited: St. Landeolus, bishop in 870;

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William I (1120-41) who helped to draw up the ancient "For de Bigorre," one of the oldest and most curious monuments of the law of the Middle Ages; Pierre de Foix (1462-64), cardinal in 1437; Gabriel de Gramont (1524-34), cardinal in 1531, who attempted to ne- gotiate between Henry VIII and the Holy See to prevent a rupture.

The Benedictine monastery of St. Savin of Lavedan was founded by Charlemagne and shortly took the name of the hermit and miracle worker, St. Savin, who was one of its monks and died before 840; the ab- bot was lord of the territory and the villages under his obedience were called a repubhc. The Benedictine Abbeys of St. Orens of Larreule and of St. Orens of Lavedan were founded, one in 970 and the other be- fore the eleventh century in honour of St. Orens, Bishop of Auch, who had first lived as a hermit in the Lavedan. The mon;istery of St-Pe de Gdneres, was founded about 1032 by Sanchc, Duke of Gascony ; it was the cradle of the town of Saint-P(5. The priory of Sarrancolin was founded about 1050 in memory of St. Ebbons, who fought against the Moors in Cata- lonia and died at Sarrancolin. The Abbey of Escale Dieu was founded in 1140; it was the daughter of the Cistercian Abbey of Morimond. St. Bertrand of Comminges was one of its monks; another, St. Ray- mond, was sent to Spain in 1158, where he founded the Abbey of Fitere, and the celebrated semi-religious, semi-military order of Calatrava. St. Bertrand, Bishop of Comminges (1073-1123), preached the Gos- pel in the Vallee d'Azun in the Diocese of Tarbes. To make amends for the hostile recci)1ion that had been given him, the inhabitants i)lrilg(Ml themselves to give the See of Comminges all the butter that should be produced in the territory of Azun during the week pre- ceding Pentecost; this impost was paid down to 1789. As natives of Bigorre may be cited: Cardinal Arnaud d'Ossat (1536-1604), born at Larroquc ^Lagnoae, who played an important part in the reign of Henry IV; Bernard Pierre Carasse, born at Tarbes at the open- ing of the sixteenth century, who, from being a war- rior, became general of the Carthusians, revised the constitutions of the order, and was so illustrious in his day, that in 1582 Catherine de Medici visited La Chartreuse to see him.

The fame of the Diocese of Tarbes has been spread throughout the Christian world since 1858 by the pil- grimages and the miracles of Lourdes (q. v.). Men- tion must also be made of the pilgrimage of Notre Dame de Garraison at Monleon, dating back to the fifteenth century; that of Notre Dame de Poueylahun near Eaux Bonnes, dating back to the sixirCenth cen- tury; the pilgrimage to Mazeres, near the vacant shrine of St. Liberal a, perhaps a martyr under Julian the Apostate; the pilgrimage to Arreau, to the chapel of St. ExTiperius, friend of St. Jerome, who died Arch- bishop of Toulouse, about 417, after combating the heresy of Vigilantius. Before the application of the law of 1901 against the congregations there were in the Diocese of Tarbes, the Priests of the Immaculate Conception at Lourdes, Carmelites, and various teach- ing orders of brothers. Several congregations of nuns were originally founded in the diocese: the Sisters of St. Joseph, hospitallers and teachers, with their mother-house at Cantaous; the Sisters of Notre Dame des Douleurs, hospitallers, with their mother-house at Tarbes, and a branch house in Cairo; t he Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Notre Dame de I^ourdes, with their mother-house at Louriles. At the close of the nineteenth centurj- the religious congregations di- rected in the diocese: 5 schools, 1 home for sick chil- dren, 1 school for the deaf and dumb, 6 girls' orphan- ages, 6 workshops, 3 homes for the poor, 12 hospitals or hospices, 3 houses of retreat, 6 houses of nuns de- voted to nursing the sick in their own homeB. At the time of the abrogation of the Concordat (1905) the Diocese of Tarbes contained 215,546 inhabitants, 28