Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cambrai

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cambrai (Latin: Archdiocesis Cameracensis; French: Archidiocèse de Cambrai) is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France, comprising the arrondissements of Avesnes-sur-Helpe, Cambrai, Douai, and Valenciennes within the département of Nord, in the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The current archbishop is Vincent Dollmann, appointed in December 2000. Since 2008 the archdiocese has been a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Lille.

Archdiocese of Cambrai

Archidioecesis Cameracensis

Archidiocèse de Cambrai
Location
Country France
Ecclesiastical provinceLille
MetropolitanArchdiocese of Lille
Statistics
Area3,420 km2 (1,320 sq mi)
Population
- Total
- Catholics (including non-members)		(as of 2013)
1,020,000
921,900 (90.4%)
Information
DenominationCatholic
Sui iuris churchLatin Church
RiteRoman Rite
Established580
CathedralCathedral of Our Lady of Graces in Cambrai
Patron saintSaint Gaugericus of Cambrai
Current leadership
PopeFrancis
ArchbishopVincent Dollmann
Metropolitan ArchbishopLaurent Ulrich
Map
Website
cathocambrai.com

History
The medieval diocese of Cambrai was based upon the Roman civitas of the Nervii.

Originally erected in the late 6th century as the Diocese of Cambrai, when the episcopal see after the death of the Frankish bishop Saint Vedast (Vaast) was relocated here from Arras. Though subordinate to the Archdiocese of Reims, Cambrai's jurisdiction was immense and included even Brussels and Antwerp.

In the early Middle Ages the Diocese of Cambrai was included in that part of Lotharingia which at first had been allocated to the West Frankish king Charles the Bald by the Treaty of Meerssen of 870 but, after various vicissitudes, came under the rule of the German king Henry the Fowler in 925. After the revolt by Duke Gilbert of Lorraine collapsed at the Battle of Andernach of 939, Louis IV of France renounced the Lotharingian lands, and in 941 Henry's son and successor King Otto I of Germany ratified all the privileges that had been accorded to the Bishops of Cambrai by the Frankish rulers.

In 1007, the Bishops gained an immediate secular territory when Emperor Henry II invested them with authority over the former County of Cambrésis; the Bishop of Cambrai thus became the overlord of the twelve "peers of Cambresis". The Prince-Bishopric of Cambrai became an Imperial State, located between the County of Hainaut and the border with Flanders and Vermandois in the Kingdom of France, while the citizens of Cambrai struggled to gain the autonomous status of an Imperial city. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the bishopric was temporarily a protectorate of the Burgundian dukes, which in 1482, as part of the inheritance of Mary the Rich, passed to her husband Maximilian I of Habsburg.

Cambrai from 1512 was part of the Imperial Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle and – like the Prince-Bishopric of Liège – was not incorporated into the Seventeen Provinces of the Burgundian Circle. Nevertheless, the creation in 1559 of the new metropolitan See of Mechlin and of eleven other dioceses in the Southern Netherlands was at the request of King 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 the dioceses of Saint Omer, Tournai and Namur as suffragans. The councils of Leptines, at which Saint Boniface played an important role, were held in what was then the part of the former Diocese of Cambrai in the Southern Netherlands.

Under King Louis XIV the Bishopric of Cambrai finally became French after the Siege of Cambrai of 1677, confirmed in the Treaties of Nijmegen of 1678 and 1679. From 1790 Cambrai was part of the new Nord department. By the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801, Cambrai was again reduced to a simple bishopric, suffragan to Paris, and included remnants of the former dioceses of Tournai, Ypres, and Saint Omer. In 1817 both the pope and the king were eager for the erection of a see at Lille, but Bishop Louis de Belmas (1757–1841), a former constitutional bishop, vigorously opposed it. Immediately upon his death, in 1841, Cambrai once more became an archbishopric, with the diocese of Arras as suffragan.

Bishops

For the first bishops of Arras and Cambrai, who resided at the former place, see Arras. On the death of Saint Vedulphus (545–580) the episcopal residence was transferred from Arras to Cambrai. Among his successors were:

Archbishops
Fénelon was archbishop of Cambrai from 1695 to 1715.
  • Maximilian de Berghes (1562–1570)
  • Louis de Berlaymont (1570–1596)
  • Jean Sarazin (1596–1598)
  • Guillaume de Berghes (1601–1609)
  • Jean Richardot (1609–1614),[7] minister and diplomat of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella.
  • François Buisseret (1614–1615)[8]
  • Franciscus van der Burch (1616–1644)[9]
  • Joseph de Bergaigne (1644–1647)
  • Gaspard Nemius (1649–1667)
  • Ladislas Jonart (1667–1674)
  • Jacques-Théodore de Bryas (1675–1694)
  • François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon, theologian and writer, proponent of Quietism (1695–1715).
  • Jean d' Estrées[10] (1716–1718)
  • Cardinal Joseph de la Tremoille[11] (1718-1720).
  • Cardinal Guillaume Dubois (1720–1723), minister to Louis XV.[12]
  • Charles de Saint-Albin (1723-1764)[13] (illegitimate son of Philippe d' Orleans, Regent of France)[14]
  • Leopold-Charles de Choiseul-Stainville[15] (1764–1774) (His brother, Étienne-François, was Foreign Minister)
  • Henri-Marie-Bernardin de Ceilhes de Rosset de Fleury[16] (1774-1781)
  • Ferdinand Maximilien Mériadec de Rohan (1781–1801).[17]
  • Louis de Belmas (30 April 1802 – 21 July 1841)
  • Pierre Giraud (24 January 1842 – 17 April 1850)
  • René-François Régnier[18] (30 September 1850 – 3 January 1881)
  • Alfred Duquesnay (1881–1884).
  • François-Edouard Hasley (27 March 1885 – 7 August 1888)
  • Odon Thibaudier (14 February 1889 – 9 January 1892)
  • Etienne-Marie-Alphonse Sonnois (19 January 1893 – 7 February 1913)
  • François-Marie-Joseph Delamaire (7 February 1913 – 21 July 1913)
  • Jean-Arthur Chollet (21 November 1913 – 2 December 1952)
  • Emile Maurice Guerry (2 December 1952 – 15 February 1966 Retired)
  • Henri-Martin-Félix Jenny (15 February 1966 – 25 March 1980 Retired)
  • Jacques Louis Léon Delaporte (25 March 1980 – 21 November 1999)
  • François Garnier (7 December 2000 – 15 August 2018)
  • Vincent Dollmann (15 August 2018 –)

Notable people

The list of notable people associated with the Diocese of Cambrai is very extensive, and their biographies, although short, take up no less than four volumes of the work by Canon Destombes. Exclusive of those saints whose history would be of interest only in connection with the Belgian territory formerly belonging to the diocese, mention may be made of:

The Jesuits Cortyl and du Béron, first apostles of the Pelew Islands, were martyred in 1701, and Chomé (1696–1767), who was prominent in the Missions of Paraguay and Argentina in the province of Misiones, also the Oratorian Gratry (1805–1872), philosopher and member of the French Academy, were natives of the Diocese of Cambrai. The English college of Douai, founded by William Allen in 1568, gave in subsequent centuries a certain number of apostles and martyrs to Catholic England. Since the promulgation of the law of 1875 on higher education, Lille has been the seat of important Catholic faculties.

Notable French and Flemish composers who served as maître de chapelle at Cambrai include Guillaume Dufay, Robert de Févin, Johannes Lupus and Jean de Bonmarché.

See also Johann Esch and Heinrich Voes.

Notable chronicle

A chronicle of the bishops of Cambrai was written in the 11th century. This Gesta episcoporum Cambracensium[19] was for some time attributed to Balderic, archbishop of Noyon, but it now seems that the author was an anonymous canon of Cambrai.[20] The work is of considerable importance for the history of the north of France during the 11th century, and was first published in 1615.[21]

Places

Abbeys

Under the old regime the Archdiocese of Cambrai contained forty-one abbeys, eighteen of which belonged to the Benedictines. Chief among them were:

  • the Abbey of St. Géry, founded near Cambrai about the year 600 in honour of St. Médard by St. Géry (580–619), deacon of the church of Treves, and who built a chapel on the bank of the Senne, on the site of the future city of Brussels;
  • the Abbey of Hautmont, founded in the seventh century by St. Vincent Madelgarus, 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 Maubeuge, founded in 661 by St. Aldegonde the sister of St. Wandru and a descendant 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 mother of two saints, one of whom, St. Gudule, was a nun at Nivelles and became patroness of Brussels, and the other, St. Raynalde, a martyr;
  • the Abbey of Lobbes which, in the seventh and eighth centuries, had as abbots St. Landelin, St. Ursmar, 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 Abbey of Maroilles (seventh century), which St. Humbert I, who died in 682, was abbot; the abbey was sacked and destroyed, 1791-1794, and used as a quarry for stones. It no longer exists.
  • the Abbey of Elno, founded in the seventh century by St. Amandus and endowed by Dagobert;
  • the Abbey of St. Ghislain, founded c. 650 by 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 century);
  • the Abbey of Liessies (eighth century) which, in the sixteenth century, had for abbot Ven. Louis de Blois, author of numerous spiritual writings;
  • the Abbey of St. Sauve de Valenciennes (ninth century), founded in honour of the itinerant bishop St. Sauve (Salvius), martyred in Hainaut at the end of the eighth century;
  • the Abbey of Cysoing, founded about 854 by St. Eberhard, Count of Flanders, Duke of Frioul and son-in-law of Louis the Debonair.

Pilgrimages

The principal places of pilgrimage are:

  • Notre-Dame de la Treille at Lille, a church dedicated in 1066 by Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, visited by St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Bernard, and Pope Innocent III, and where, on 14 June 1254, fifty-three cripples were suddenly cured;
  • Notre-Dame de Grâce at Cambrai, containing a picture ascribed to St. Luke;
  • Notre-Dame des Dunes at Dunkerque, where the special object of interest is a statue which, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, was discovered near the castle of Dunkerque;
  • the feast associated with this, 8 September 1793, coincided with the raising of the siege of this city by the Duke of York;
  • Notre-Dame des Miracles at Bourbourg, made famous by a miracle wrought in 1383, an account of which was given by the chronicler Froissart, who was an eyewitness. A Benedictine abbey formerly extant here was converted by Marie Antoinette into a house of noble canonesses. Until a comparatively recent date, the great religious solemnities in the diocese often gave rise to ducasses, sumptuous processions in which giants, huge fishes, devils, and representations of heaven and hell figured prominently. Before the law of 1901 was enforced there were in the diocese Augustinians, English Benedictines, Jesuits, Marists, Dominicans, Franciscans, Lazarists, Redemptorists, Camillians, Brothers of St. Vincent de Paul, and Trappists; the last-named still remain. Numerous local congregations of women are engaged in the schools and among the sick, as, for instance: the Augustinian Nuns (founded in the sixth century, mother-house at Cambrai);
  • the Bernardines of Our Lady of Flines (founded in the thirteenth century);
  • the Daughters of the Infant Jesus (founded in 1824, mother-house at Lille);
  • the Bernardines of Esquernes (founded in 1827);
  • the Sisters of Providence, or of St. Therese (mother-house at Avesnes);
  • the Sisters of Our Lady of Treille (mother-house at Lille), and the Religious of the Holy Union of the Sacred Hearts (mother-house at Douai).

See also

References
  1. John S. Ott (2007), "'Both Mary and Martha': Bishop Lietbert of Cambrai and the construction of episcopal sanctity in a Border Diocese around 1100," John S. Ott; Anna Trumbore Jones, eds. (2007). The Bishop Reformed: Studies of Episcopal Power and Culture in the Central Middle Ages. Aldershot, Hampshire UK: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 122–136. ISBN 978-0-7546-5765-1.
  2. Guiard of Laon
  3. Gallia christiana III (Paris 1725), p. 39.
  4. Eubel, I, p. 160. Guillaume was the son of Jean d'Avenses Comte d' Hainault and Marguerite the sister of Guillaume Count of Holland. He was brother of John II of Avenses, Count of Hainault. Guillaume was appointed by Pope Honorius IV on 9 May 1286. He had previously been Provost of Cambrai. He died in 1296.
  5. Cardinal Robert of Geneva was unanimously elected Pope on 20 September 1378, under the name of Clement VII.
  6. During the episcopate of Jean t'Serclaes, John the Fearless, son of the Duke of Burgundy, married Margaret of Bavaria at Cambrai (1385)
  7. Richardot's father, the Seigneur de Barly, was President of the Council of Artois and Councilor of State in Bruxelles. Jean Richardot was ambassador of the Archduke and Archduchess to Pope Clement VIII. Richardot was elected by the specific command of the Archduke and Archduchess to the Chapter of Cambrai. Eubel-Gauchat, IV, p. 131. Gallia christiana III, p. 57. Fisquet, pp. 259-262.
  8. Eubel-Gauchat, IV, p. 131. Gallia christiana III, pp. 57-58. Fisquet, pp. 262-264.
  9. Eubel-Gauchat, IV, p. 131. Gallia christiana III, pp. 58-59. Fisquet, pp. 264-271.
  10. Jean d' Estrées was the nephew of Cardinal César d' Estrées. In 1692 he was sent as ambassador to Spain by Louis XIV, and again in 1703. He was Abbot Commendatory of Saint-Claude, Evron, and Préaux. In 1705 he was named Prelate Commander of all of the royal Orders of chivalry and became a member of the Council on Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the Académie Française, taking the chair of Boilieu. He died on 3 March 1718, without having received his bulls of preconisation and consecration from the Pope. Fisquet, pp. 329-330.
  11. Nominated by King Louis XV, Tremoille was consecrated in Rome by Pope Clement XI on 30 May 1719 and granted the pallium on 18 September. He died on 10 January 1720. Ritzler, V, p. 139, with note 6. Fisquet, pp. 330-331.
  12. Fisquet, pp. 332-347. Pierre Bliard (1901). Dubois, cardinal et premier ministre (1656-1723) (in French). Paris: P. Lethielleux.
  13. Ritzler, Hierarchia catholica, V, p. 139, with n. 8.
  14. Fisquet, p. 348.
  15. Fisquet, pp. 352-356.
  16. Fisquet, pp. 356-358.
  17. Rohan was nominated Archbishop of Cambrai by King Louis XVI on 28 January 1781, and received his bulls from Pope Pius VI dated 2 April 1781. Ritzler, Remigius; Sefrin, Pirminus (1958). Hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi VI (1730-1799). Patavii: Messagero di S. Antonio. p. 143, with n. 4. Retrieved 6 July 2016.
  18. Destombes, Cyrille Jean (1885). Vie de Son Éminence le cardinal Regnier, archevêque de Cambrai (in French). Lille: J. Lefort.
  19. Monumenta Germaniae historica inde ab anno Christi quingentesimo usque ad annum millesimum et quingentesimum... (in German and Latin). Scriptores: VII. Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Aulici Hahniani. 1846. pp. 393–525.
  20. Robert M. Stein (2006). "Sacred Authority and Secular Power: The Historical Argument of the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensis [sic]," in: Lawrence Besserman, ed. (2006). Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 149–166. ISBN 978-1-4039-7727-4., and especially p. 217 n. 12.
  21. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Balderic" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

Reference works

Studies

Acknowledgment

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