Bourges, Archdiocese of

BOURGES, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - City in central France, capital of the department of Cher; the archdiocese also extends into the department of Indre. Under the name Avaricum it was the principal oppidum of the Bituriges; conquered by Caesar in 52 B.C., as Biturigae it became the metropolis of Aquitania and, with the Diocletianic reform, the capital of Aquitania Prima. It was taken by the Goths in 475, united to the kingdom of the Franks in 507, then a county of Berry.

Until the French Revolution, B. possessed an ivory diptych of the 11th century (now in the cabinet of medals in Paris) containing the catalogue of its archbishops, continued down to the close of the 13th century (Simon of Beaulieu, 1281-94). A copy of it is in a capitular cartulary of the mid-13th century; another copy contains the list of archbishops down to 1789 (ms. 9861 of the National Library of Paris). Two other transcriptions of the list are found in a canonical collection (cod. parisin. 4280 f. 56) that ends at 1096 (archbishop Aldebert) and in a collection of Robert of St. Marian. First in the episcopal list is St. Ursinus, whose feast B. celebrates on December 29. The list becomes more complete from St. Rudolph onward (840-66). In the Middle Ages numerous abbeys, both male and female, flourished in B.

The archdiocese has an area of 1438 sq. km. with a population of 358,145 inhabitants, of whom 535,000 are Catholics, with 506 parishes, 425 diocesan priests and 52 regulars; it has a major seminary and the seminaries of St-Louis, St-Martin and of the Bonne-Dame. The patron of the archdiocese is the protomartyr St. Stephen. The archbishop bears the ancient purely honorary titles of primate of the Aquitanias and patriarch.

Since the end of the 18th century B. has had as suffragans the dioceses of Clermont, Limoges, Le Puy-en-Velay, St-Flour, Tulle.

Illustrious figures: St. Sulpicius Severus (591), St. Sulpicius the Pious (644), St. Rudolph (866), St. Solange (10th century), St. William (1209), St. Joan of Valois, duchess of Berry, wife of Louis XII, foundress of the Order of the Annunciation (v.).

Provincial councils were held at B. in 473, 1031, 1145, 1225, 1240, 1276, 1280, 1286, 1336, 1438, 1440, 1528; at Issoudun in 1081.

Notable pilgrimages are those to Notre-Dame du Sacré Coeur at Issoudun; to Notre-Dame de Miséricorde at Pellevoisin; to Notre-Dame des Miracles at Deols; to Notre-Dame des Enfants at Châteauneuf-sur-Cher.

Bourges e Parigi 1927; id., s. v. in DHG, X, coll. 178-211; Guide de la France chrétienne et missionnaire 1948-49, Paris 1948, pp. 331-32; 529-31; 1015-16.

Enrico Josi

ART

Of the Roman city there remain the ruins of the temples of Minerva (38-41), of Mars, of Jupiter (late 1st or early 2nd century), and remains of the aqueducts and walls (4th century) which later became an integral part of subsequent constructions. Traces of the Merovingian and Carolingian periods are scanty.

Few remains survive of the ancient Cathedral, built by Gauzlin (1014-30). The cathedral of St. Stephen is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture: begun around 1194, it was consecrated in 1324. It has no transept and is original in the arrangement of its five naves, to which the sculpted portals on the façade correspond. The façade, to which the stained-glass window, on designs by Drouet de Dammartin, lends refinement, is flanked by two towers, the "Sourde" (14th century) and the "du Beurre" (16th century). The cathedral of B., together with that of Chartres, is the richest in stained glass: the finest are those of one of the desembalatori (first quarter of the 13th century) and of the apse, in which the Italian influence is evident. In the underground church, which was built between 1180 and 1200 to compensate for a difference in level, there are the statue of Duke Jean de Berry, by Jean de Cambrai, 15th-century stained glass and ten statues of archbishops of the Carolingian age.

The church of St-Pierre-le-Guillard, likewise without a transept, dates back to the 13th century and was rebuilt in the 16th century. The church of St-Bonnet, of which there was only the 16th-century choir by Guillaume Pelvoysin, has been completed (noteworthy are the stained glass by Jean Lécuyer and the paintings by Boucher).

The palace of Jacques Coeur is one of the masterpieces of 15th-century Gothic civil architecture (1443-51): worthy of note are the carved panels of the door and the wrought-iron knocker, the false windows from which look out the stone figures of Jacques Coeur and his wife, and the frescoes and sculptures of the chapel.

Although B. remained fundamentally Gothic during the Renaissance period and the religious element was always present even in civil buildings, the decorations of the Gothic palace Cuyas, which was built in 1515 by Pelvoysin and which houses the musée du Berry, and of the Lallemand palace, an interesting model of a wealthy bourgeois dwelling of the Renaissance (1518), several times restored, show the Italian influence.

In the 19th century numerous buildings of little artistic interest arose, such as the Château d'Eau (1807), the theatre (1859), the school of Fine Arts (1883), while some statues erected in public places are worthy of note, such as that of Louis XI by J. Baffier, and those of Bourdaloue and of Sigaud, works by Dumontet. - See Pl. CXIX.

Fabia Borroni