BEAUVAIS, DIOCESE of. — In northeastern France, capital of the department of Oise at the confluence of the Thérain and Avelon rivers. In 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 religious priests (1949). The patron of the diocese is St. Lucian the martyr.
It formed part of the second Belgic province, but nothing remains from the Roman period except thermal ruins. The first bishop whose date is known is Marinus, in the year 632; but the succession of the bishops of B., both for the Roman and for the Merovingian period, cannot be documented; some bishops of the seventh and eighth centuries are known only from documents: their names never appear in councils before the middle of the eighth century. The Constituent Assembly made B. a departmental diocese with Rouen as its metropolitan see. The Concordat suppressed it, annexing it to Amiens. It was re-established in 1823, again as a suffragan see of Reims. By a brief of 12 April 1854, Pius IX granted the bishop of B. the right to assume also the titles of the two suppressed dioceses of Noyon and Senlis. The LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, FRANÇOIS DE (v.) was archbishop of B.; he was martyred in 1792.
There were numerous abbeys in the diocese of B. The most celebrated is the Benedictine abbey of St. Symphorian, erected in the tenth century by Bishop Drogon on the site of an ancient oratory; burned and restored three times, and transformed into a commendam at the beginning of the sixteenth century, today only remains of the cloister and of a façade survive. The abbey of St. Quentin of the Augustinian Order, erected in 1067 and dedicated in 1069 (its first abbot being Ivo of Chartres), was converted into a commendam in the sixteenth century and sold in 1791; the church was subsequently demolished.
The oldest religious building in B. is Notre-Dame de la Basse-Oeuvre, in which large square pillars from the end of the tenth century remain; the façade is from the eleventh century and the portal from the thirteenth. Nearby stands the cathedral, St. Peter, founded by Bishop Hugh in the middle of the ninth century, continued in the eleventh century, subsequently destroyed by fire 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 finest Gothic buildings because of the height of its central nave; the transept is from the sixteenth century, and the stained-glass windows from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The episcopal palace is preceded by a portal with two two-storied towers dating from 1306; the rest belongs to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Today it is used as the Law Courts. Church of St. Stephen. Built partly above a Roman thermal building, it has inside the nave of the twelfth century, while the choir and stained-glass windows are from the sixteenth century. On the exterior, a rose window contains the wheel of fortune. — Vedi Tav. LXX.