BESANÇON, ARCHDIOCESE of. — It extends over 11,200 sq. km. in the two departments of Haute-Saône and Doubs. It has 560,000 Catholics out of a population of 587,476 inhabitants; 888 parishes, 925 diocesan priests and 735 religious (1948). B. is ancient Vesontia, a fortified city and capital of the Sequani, conquered by G. Caesar; after the region had been organized as the Roman province of Maxima Sequanorum, B. also flourished with schools. It was plundered by the Germans and the Vandals in the 5th century, and in the 7th century by the Saracens. It then passed to the Carolingians and formed part of the Franche-Comté until 1674, when it was conquered by Louis XIV.
For the history of the church of B., an initial list of bishops dates from the time of Bishop St. Hugues de Salins (1031-1067), since several episcopal catalogues subsequently inserted into liturgical books end with him. Duchesne considers the first part of the list, through the 6th century, uncertain. Among the signatories of the false Council of Cologne (346) there is a Pancarius Vesontensium, perhaps identifiable with Pacatus; Chelidonius, deposed ca. 444 and then confirmed by St. Leo the Great, is certain; of Silvester, present at the Council of Paris in 573, a fragment of his epitaph reveals that he died after 22 years of episcopate. A bishop named Ado, attested by a document of 869, is absent from the lists.
Having become a metropolitan see, B. had as suffragans the other dioceses of the province, namely Aventicum, Augusta Ramacorum, Civitas Equestris, and Vindonissa.
In 1742 the abbey of St-Claude was constituted a diocese with a group of parishes from the territory of the Jura. The Constituent Assembly made B. the metropolis of the eastern territories. A decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Council of 10 July 1874 added the territory of Belfort to II. Its suffragans are the dioceses of St-Dié, Belley, Nancy, and Verdun.
The patrons of the diocese are the martyrs Ferreolus and Ferrutius, commemorated on 5 September in the Martyr. Hieronymianum, but their passio has great affinities with that of St. Benignus.
The ancient cathedral of St. Stephen was demolished by Vauban (Sébastien de Prestre, marquis of) in order to build the fortress (1674). From it comes a 5th-6th-century altar table for offerings, in the form of a marble disk 1.07 m in diameter, with eight semicircular lobes and the inscription hoc signum praestat populis caelestia regna running around it, while at the center, enclosed within a circle, is the Signum Christi ✠ between the two letters A and ω; the Latin cross is attached to the shaft of the P; at the foot of the cross there is a lamb, and above it a dove. (G. Rohault de Fleury, La Messe, études archéologiques sur ses monuments, I, Paris 1883, p. 161, pl. 37).
The present cathedral, dedicated to the apostle St. John, was consecrated in 1148 by Pope Eugenius III; it was damaged by a fire in 1213; the magnificent arches of the main nave with historiated capitals survive; it has two terminal apses, and in the western one is placed Carlo Vanloo’s Resurrection. It also contains the masterpiece of fra’ Bartolomeo della Porta (v.), the Virgin and Child among SS. Sebastian, Bernard, and Anthony, with the donor (Ferry Carondelet, abbot of Montbenoit), who is buried there. Other churches of B. are Notre-Dame, built over the ancient abbey of St. Vincent (11th century), St. Peter, St. Francis Xavier (1680), modeled on the Gesù in Rome, and La Maddalena, with two towers on the outside, on the right bank of the Doubs. Modern is the great basilica dedicated to the holy protectors Ferreolus and Ferrutius.
The archdiocese possesses a major seminary and four minor seminaries. Among its many abbeys, besides Luxeuil (v.), are those of Cherlieu, Clairefontaine, Faverney, Lure, Montbenoit, Mont-Sainte-Marie, and Rosières.
Among the archbishops of B. were the cardinals Giovanni d'Algrin, Guglielmo III de Vergy, Antonio de Granvelle, Clériade de Choiseul, and Francesco Augusto de Rohan. The University founded at Dôle in 1422 and endowed in 1497 with faculties of Theology and canon law was transferred to B. in 1671. It currently comprises faculties of Arts, Medicine, and Sciences. The Civic Library contains precious manuscripts, such as a 9th-century codex with the four Gospels, perhaps originating from the abbey of Saint-Claude; an 11th-century psalter; Gospels from the 11th and 12th centuries; a 13th-century Greek breviary; a scroll of justification in Ethiopic; and so forth. (H. Leclercq, s. V. in DACL, II, cols. 84-28).
L. Loye, Histoire de l'église de B., 6 vols., there 1901-1903; L. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, 2nd ed., I, Paris 1907, pp. 48-62; III, there 1915, pp. 198-216; G. Bardy, Les anciennes listes épiscopales de B., in Mémoires des Sociétés d'émulation du Doubs, 8th series, 9 (1918), pp. 97-119. Enrico Josi