Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/24

 TOURS

TOURS

Tours, Archdiocese of (Turonensis), comprises the Department of Indre-et-Loire, and was re-estab- lished by the Concordat of 1801 with the Dioceses of Angers, Nantes, Le Mans, Rennes, Vannes, St-Brieuc, and Quimper as suffragans. The elevation to metro- poHtan rajik of the Diocese of Rennes in 1859, with the last three dioceses as suffragans, dismembered the Province of Tours. The Diocese of Laval, created in 1855, is a suffragan of Tours. P'or the early eccle- siastical history of Tours wp have an excellent docu- ment, the concluding chapter "De episcopis Turoni- cis"in Gregory of Tours's "History of the Franks",

Frontispiece of the \'ivian Bible, IX Century Abbot Vivian and the Monks of St. Martin's, at Tours, present- ing the completed copy to Charles the Bald Paris, Bibl. Nat. (MS. lat. 1, f. 423)

though Mgr Ducliesne has shown that it requires some chronological corrections. The founder of the see was St. Clatiunus; according to Gregory of Tours he was one of the seven apostles sent from Rome to Gaul in the middle of the third century. Two grottos cut in the hill above the Loire, opposite Tours, are held to have been the first sanctuaries where St. Gatianus celebrated the Liturgy. According to Mgr Duchesne the tradition of Tours furnished Gregory with only the name of Gatianus, accompanied perhaps by the length, fifty years, of his episcopate; it was by com- parison with the "Passio S. Saturnini" of Toulouse that Gregory arrived at the date 'i.'iO. Mgr Duchesne considers this date rather doubtfid, but admits that the Church of Tours was founded in the time of Constantino.

After St. Gatianus, according to Mgr Duchesne's chronology, came: St. Litorius, or Lidoire (337-71); the illustrious St. Mariin (4 July, 372—8 Nov., 397); St. Brice (397-441), who was accused to Celestine I of immorality and ab.solved by the pope, but who re- mained absent seventeen years from the episcopal city, which was governed by the intruded Bi.shop Armentius; St. Kustochius (444-61); St. Perpetuus (461-91): St. Volusianus (491-9S), deprived of his see by the Visigoths, exiled to Toulouse, and perhaps martyred; Verus (498-509), also deprived of his see

at the command of Alaric; St. Baud (546-52), chan- cellor of Clotaire I; St. Euphronius (556-73), who made at Poitiers the solemn transfer of the relic of the True Cross to the monastery founded by St. Rade- gunde; the historian Gregory (573-94) (see Gregory OF Tours, Saint). After St. Gregory the history of the diocese for two centuries and a half is obscure and confused, but the study of various episcopal cata- logues has made it po.ssible for Mgr Duchesne to some- what clear up this period. Landramnus, bishop under Louis the Pious, was by this prince appointed missus dominicus, or royal commissary, in 825.

Among subsequent bishops were: Raoul II (1086- 1117), who despite the prohibition of Hugues, legate of the Holy See, had dealings with the excommuni- cated Philip I, and under whose eijiscopate Paschal II came to Tours (1107); Hildeljert de Lavardin (1125- 34) ; Etienne de Bourgueil (1323-35), who founded the College of Tours at Paris; the jurisconsult Pierre Fretaud (133.5-57); Jacques G<ilu (141.5-27), later Bi.shop of Embrun (see G.\p, Diocese of) ; Philippe de Coetquis (1427-41), who, commissioned by Charles VII in 1429 to interrogate Joan of Arc, recognized her perfect sincerity, and who was madeacardinal by anti- pope Felix V. Heliede Bourdeilles (1468-84), cardinal in 14S3; Robert deLenoncourt (1484-1501), afterwards .'Kii'lihishop of Reims; Dominic Carette, Cardinal de Fiiuil (1509-14); Alessandro Farne.se (15,53-54), car- dinal in 15.34; De Maille de Breze (15,54-97), who a.s- si.sted the Cardinal de Lorraine at the Council of Trent and translated the homihes of St. Basil; Victor le Bouthiller (1641-70), who played an important [lart in the religious renai.ssance of the seventeenth century; Boisgelin de Cic^ (1802-04), who under the old regime had been Archbishop of Aix and in 1802 was created cardinal; De Barral (1804-15); Fran^'ois Morlot (1843-57), cardinal in 1853, Archbihhop of I'aris at the time of his death; Joseph-Hippoljie Guibeit (1857-71), cardinal in 1873, later became Archbishop of Paris; Guillaume-Ren^ Aleignan (1884- 96), cardinal in 1893, known by his exegetical works.

Tours was the capital of the Third Lyonnaise prov- ince. The ecclesiastical province of Tours must have been established under the episcopate of St. Martin. Fifty years later it was in regular operation, as is proved by, among other documents, the synodal epis- tles of the Councils of Angers and Vannes in 453 and 461. (Concerning the prolonged efforts of the Breton Churches to emancipate themselves from the metrop- olis of Tours and the as.«istance given to this metrop- olis by royalty see Rennes, Archdiocese of.) About 480 the Visigoths were masters of Tours and it was in the Island of Amboi.se in ,504 that the interview took place as a result of which the Frank Clovis and the Visigoth Alaric shared Gaul between them. But the Arianism of the Visigoths e\'entually roused the Catholics of Tours and when in 507 Clovis and his army entered the Visigothic kingdom Tours opened its gate to him, and he received in that city the con- sular insignia sent by Emperor Anastasius. The Saracens threatened Tours when Charles Martel de- feated them in 732. From 853 to 903 the Northmen made frequent inroads, terminated by the victory of St. Martin le Beau. Henry II of England became Count of Touraine in the middle of the twelfth cen- tury and the Engli.sh dominion w'as maintained at Tours until .John Lackland renounced it in 1214.

In the Middle Ages Tours was composed of two cities, the Roman Ca'sarodunum and the Merovingian Martinopolis. The name of Toui's was strictly re- served to the ancient Ca'sarodunum, and the territory of Tours dependetl on the archbishops. Martinop- olis, which rose :u-ound the monastery of St-Martin, took, in the tenth century, the name of Chateauneuf and for five centuries was an independent coninumity. ITnder Louis XI the two agglomerations were united in one which retained the name of Tours. The