BEAUVAIS, Diocese of. - In the north-east of France, capital of the department of the Oise at the confluence of the rivers Thérain and Avelon. Over an area of 5,845 sq. km., it has 396,724 inhabitants, of whom 394,500 are Catholics; it is divided into 551 parishes with 361 secular priests and 15 regulars (1949). The patron of the diocese is St. Lucian, martyr.
It was part of the second Belgic province, but of the Roman age nothing remains except thermae ruins. The first bishop whose date is known is Marinus of the year 632; but the succession of the bishops of B. cannot be documented either for the Roman period or for the Merovingian one; some bishops of the 7th-8th centuries are known only from documents: their names never appear in the councils before the middle of the 8th century. The Constituent Assembly made B. a departmental diocese with Rouen as its metropolis. The Concordat suppressed it, annexing it to Amiens. It was re-established in 1823, again as a suffragan of Reims. Pius IX, by a brief of 12 April 1854, conferred on the bishop of B. the right to assume also the titles of the two suppressed dioceses of Noyon and Senlis. The Blessed François Joseph de la Rochefoucauld (v.) was archbishop of B., martyred in 1792.
There were numerous abbeys in the diocese of B. The most famous is the Benedictine one of St. Symphorian, erected in the 10th century by Bishop Drogo on the site where an ancient oratory stood; burned and restored three times, turned into a commendam at the beginning of the 16th century, today only remains of the cloister and of one façade survive. The abbey of St. Quentin of the Augustinian Order, erected in 1067 and dedicated in 1069 (first abbot Ivo of Chartres), was changed into a commendam in the 16th century and sold in 1791; the church was later demolished.
The oldest religious building of B. is Notre-Dame de la Basse-Oeuvre, in which large square pillars of the end of the 10th century survive; the façade is of the 11th century and the portal of the 13th. Nearby stands the cathedral, St. Peter, founded by Bishop Hugh in the middle of the 9th century, continued in the 11th century, then burned twice, rebuilt again and collapsed in 1284. Work was resumed in 1337, then suspended and begun again in 1500. As a whole it constitutes one of the most beautiful Gothic constructions for the height of its central nave; the transept is of the 16th century, the stained-glass windows of the 14th-16th centuries. The episcopal palace is preceded by a portal with two two-storey towers of 1306, the rest belongs to the beginning of the 16th century; today it is used as a courthouse. Church of St. Stephen. Built in part above a Roman thermae building, it offers in its interior the nave of the 12th century, while the choir and the stained-glass windows are of the 16th century. On the outside a rose window contains the wheel of fortune. - See Pl. LXX.
Bibliography5 works
Enrico Josi