BEAUVAIS, DIOCESI DI - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. II, p. 655

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

BEAUVAIS, DIOCESE OF. – In north-eastern France, the chief town of the department of the Oise at the confluence of the rivers Thérien and Avelon. Over an area of 5,845 sq. km it has 396,724 inhabitants, of whom 394,500 are Catholic; it is divided into 551 parishes with 361 secular and 15 regular priests (1949). The patron saint of the diocese is St. Lucien the Martyr.

It formed part of the second Belgian province, but from the Roman age only thermal remains survive. The first bishop whose date is known is Marino, in the year 632; yet the succession of bishops of B. for both the Roman and Merovingian periods cannot be documented; some bishops of the 7th–8th centuries are known only from documents: their names never appear in the councils before

Article illustration — (Deauneveu, André – Psalter of the Duke of Berry (late 14th–early 15th c.) – Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. fr. 13091.

Bibl.: P. G. Deydon, Vie de B.-L. B., Bordeaux 1868, 2nd ed. (with correspondence), ibid. 1894; A. Launay, Mémorial de la société des missions étrangères, II, Paris 1918, pp.