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 regulars (1948). Besançon is the ancient Vesontio, a fortified city and capital of the Sequani, conquered by G. Caesar; once the region was organized into the Roman province of Maxima Sequanorum, Besançon also flourished with schools. It was sacked 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 was part of Franche-Comté until 1674, when it was conquered by Louis XIV.
As for the glories of the church of Besançon, a first list of bishops dates back to the time of Bishop St. Hugh of Salins (1031-1067), because with him several episcopal catalogues later inserted into liturgical books come to an end. Duchesne considers the first part of the list, down to the end of the 6th century, uncertain. Among the signatories of the false Council of Cologne (346) there is a Pancarius Vesontensium perhaps identifiable with Pacatus; certain instead is Chelidonius, deposed around 444 and then confirmed by St. Leo the Great; from Silvester, present at the Council of Paris in 573, we learn from a fragment of his epitaph that he died after 22 years of episcopate. A bishop Ado, attested by a document of the year 869, is missing from the lists.
Having become a metropolitan see, Besançon had as suffragans the other dioceses of the province, namely Aventicum, Augusta Rauracorum, Civitas Equestris, and Vindonissa.
In 1742 the abbey of St-Claude was made a diocese with a group of parishes in the territory of the Jura. The Constituent Assembly made Besançon the metropolis of the eastern territories. A decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory of 10 July 1874 added the territory of Belfort to it. It has as suffragans the dioceses of St-Dié, Belley, Nancy and Verdun.
The patrons of the diocese are the martyrs Ferreolus and Ferrutio, 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 Le Prestre, Marquis de) to build the fortress (1674). From it comes a table of the 5th-6th century for oblations in the form of a marble disc 1.07 m in diameter with eight semicircular lobes and around it the inscription hoc signum praestat populis caelestia regna, while in the center, enclosed in a circle, stands the Signum Christi ✠ between the two letters A and ω; on the shaft of the P is grafted the Latin cross; at the foot of the cross stands a lamb, 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 Eugene III; it was damaged by a fire in 1213; the grandiose arches of the nave with historiated capitals survive; it has two terminal apses, and in the western one is placed the Resurrection by Charles Vanloo. It also contains the masterpiece of Fra Bartolomeo della Porta (v.), the Virgin and Child between Sts. Sebastian, Bernard and Anthony and the donor (Ferry Carondelet, abbot of Montbenoît) buried there. Other churches of Besançon are those of Notre-Dame, erected above the ancient abbey of St. Vincent (11th century), St. Peter, St. Francis Xavier (1680) in imitation of the Gesù in Rome, and La Madeleine with two towers on the outside, on the right bank of the Doubs. Modern is the great basilica dedicated to the patron saints Ferreolus and Ferrutio.
The archdiocese possesses a major seminary and 4 minor seminaries. Among the many abbeys, besides the most famous one of Luxeuil (v.), those of Cherlieu, Clairefontaine, Faverney, Lure, Montbenoît, Mont-Sainte-Marie, Rosières are remembered.
Among the archbishops of Besançon, the following were cardinals: Jean d'Algrin, Guillaume III de Vergy, Antoine de Granvelle, Clériade de Choiseul, François-Auguste de Rohan. The University founded at Dôle in 1422 and endowed from 1497 with the faculties of Theology and canon law was transferred to Besançon in 1671. At present it comprises the faculties of Letters, Medicine and Sciences. The Civic library contains precious manuscripts such as a 9th-century codex with the four Gospels, perhaps from the abbey of Saint-Claude, an 11th-century psalter, Evangeliaries of the 11th and 12th centuries, a 13th-century Greek breviary, a justification scroll in Ethiopic, etc. (H. Leclercq, s. v. in DACL, II, coll. 84-28).
Bibliography
L. Loye, Histoire de l'église de B., 6 vols., ibid. 1901-1903; L. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, 2nd ed., I, Paris 1907, pp. 48-62; III, ibid. 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