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 CAMBRAI

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CAMBRAI

See of Malines in 1559 and of eleven other dioceses was at the request of Philip II of Spain in order to facilitate the struggle against the Reformation. The change greatly restricted the limits of the Diocese of Cambrai which, when thus dismembered, was made by way of compensation an archiepiscopal see with' St. Omer, Tournai. and Namur as suffragans. By the Concordat of 1802 Cambrai was again reduced to a simple bishopric, suffragan to Paris, and included remnants of the former dioceses of Tournai, Ypres, and St. Omer. In 1M7 both the pope and the king were eager for the erection of a see at Lille, but Bishop Belmas (1757-1841), a former constitutional bishop, vigorously opposed it. Immediately upon his death, in 1841, Cambrai once more became an archbishopric with Arras as suffragan.

For the first bishops of Arras and Cambrai, who resided at the former place, see Arras. On the death of St. Vedulphus (545-580) the episcopal residence was transferred from Arras to Cambrai. Among his suc- cessors were: St. Gaugericus (580-619); St. Bertho- aldus (about 625) ; St. Aubert (d. 667); St. Vindicianus (667 -693), who brought King Thierri to ac- count for the mur- der of St. Leger of Autun; St. Hadul- fus (d. 728); Alberic and Hildoard, con- temporaries of Charlemagne, a n d who gave to the diocese a sacrament- ary and important canons; Hahtgarius (817-831), an ec- clesiastical writer and apostle of the Danes; St. John (866-S79); St. Ro- thadus (879-886); Wiboldus (965-966), author of the Indus secularis which fur- nished amusement to clerkly persons ; ( lerard the (i rea t (1013-1051), form- erly chaplain to St.

Henry II. Emperor of Germany, and helpful to the latter in his negotiations with Robert the Pious, King of K ranee; (Gerard also converted by persuasion the Gondulphian heretics, who denied the Blessed Eu- charist); St. Lietbertus (1057-1076), who defended Cambrai against Robert the Frisian; Blessed Odo (1105-1113), celebrated as a professor and director of t he -rliool of Tournai, also as a writer and founder of the monastery of St. Martin near Tournai; Burchard (1115-1131), who sen t St. Norbert and the Premon- stratensians to Antwerp to combat the heresy of Tan- c|uelin's disciples concerning the Blessed Eucharist; Robert 11 of Geneva (1368-1371), antipope in 1378 under the name of < 'lenient VIII; Jean IV T'serclaes 1 1378 1389), during whose episi opate John the Fear- less, son ol the Duke of Burgundy, married Margaret of Bavaria al Cambrai I 1 385 ; the illustrious Pierre d'Ailly (1396 1411); the celebrated Fenelon i L69S 1715); in. I Cardinal Dubois < 1 T _* ( > L723), minister to Louis \ \.

In the Middle Ages the Diocese of Cambrai was

included in that part of Lorraine which, after va- rious vicissitudes, passed under German rule in ■' in and if 941 i he I imperoi Otto I he i Ireat rati- fied .ill the privileges that had been accorded the Bishop of Cambrai by the Prankish kings. Later,

in 1007, St. Henry II invested him with authority over the countship of Cambresis; the Bishop of Cambrai was thus the overlord of the twelve "peers of Cambresis". Under Louis XIV (1678) the Bishopric of Cambrai once more became French. The councils of Leptines, at which St. Boniface played an important role, were held in what was then the Belgian part of the former Diocese of Cambrai. Under the old regime the Archdiocese of Cambrai had forty-one abbeys, eighteen of which belonged to the Benedictines. Chief among them were the Abbey of St. Gery, founded near Cambrai about the year 600 in honour of St. Medard by St. Gery (5S0- 619), deacon of the church of Treves, and who built a chapel on the bank of the Senne, on the site of t he future city of Brussels; the Abbey of Hautmont, founded in the seventh century by St. Vincent, the husband of St. Wandru, who was foundress of the chapter at Mons; the Abbey of Soignies, founded by the same St. Vincent, and having for abbots his son Landri and, in the eleventh century, St. Richard; the Abbey of Mau- 1 i iiL'e, founded in 661bySt.Aldegonde the sister of St. Wandru and a de- scendant of Clovis and the kings of Thuringia, among whose successors as abbesses were her niece, St. Aldetrude (d.696) and another niece, St. Amalberte (d. 705), herself the n otherof two saints, one of whom, St. ( iudule, was a nun at Xivennes and became patroness of Brussels, and the other, St. Raynalde. a n artyr; the Abbey of Lobbes which, in t he s e v e n t h and eighth centuries, had as abbots St. Lan- delin, St. Urstnar. St. Ermin, and St. Theodulph, and in the tenth century. Heriger, the ecclesiastical writer; the Abbey of Crespin, founded in the seventh century by St. Landelin, who was succeeded by St. Adelin; the \l bey of Maroilles (seventh century), of which St. Humbert I, who died in 682, was abbot; the Abbey of Elnon, founded in the seventh century by St. Amandus and endowed by Dagobert; the Abbey of St. Ghislain, founded in the seventh century by the Athenian philosopher, St. Ghislain. and having as abbots St. Gerard (tenth century) and St. Poppo (eleventh century); the Abbey of Marchiennes, founded by St. Rictrudes (end of the seventh cen- tury); the Abbey of Liessies (eighth century) which, in the sixteenth century, had for abbot Ven Louis de Blois (1506-1566), author of numerous spiritual writings (see Blosius); the Abbey of St. Sauve de Valenciennes (ninth century), founded in honour ol the itinerant bishop St. Sauve (Salvius), martyred in llainault at the end of the eighth century: anil the AliKcv of Cvsoing. founded about 854 by St. Evrard, Count <<i Flanders and son-in-law of Louis

t he I Iclionair.

The list of the saints of the Diocese of Cambrai is verv extensive, ami their biographies, although short, take up no less than four volumes of the WOl Canon I Vstombes. Lxclusive ol those saints whose