AVRANCHES. - Situated between Brittany and Normandy, near the mouth of the river See, in the department of Manche. In the Roman age Abricantes formed part of the second Lugdunensian province; the Notitia Dignitatum indicates it as the residence of the praefectus dalmatorum militum. Its Christian origins are obscure. Bishop Nepus took part in the Council of Orléans in 511. The poet Fortunato wrote the life of Bishop St. Paterno.
Bishop St. Aubertus, about the beginning of the 8th century, founded the monastery and church of St. Michael on Mont Tombe; later Giovanni di Bayeux (1061-69) wrote the Liber de officiis ecclesiasticis.
The Cathedral and other churches were plundered by the Calvinists in 1562; when the diocese was suppressed in 1790, it had 180 parishes. It is Coutances (v.). The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Andrew, an imposing structure with three square towers, was built on a promontory overlooking the bay of Mont St. Michael; begun in 1925, it was consecrated in 1121. Restored in the 15th century, it collapsed in 1794. The churches of St. Gervasio, St. Saturnino, and Notre-Dame-des-Champs, though ancient in origin, have all been rebuilt.
Its library, containing more than 25,000 volumes and 270 manuscripts, almost all deriving from the ancient abbeys of Mont-St-Michel, Montmul, and Savigny, with admirable miniatures from the Romanesque period, is highly valuable. (v. COUTANCES).