CAMBRAI, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - Situated on the left bank of the Scheldt, C. was, along with Tournai and Bavay, the capital of the country of the Nervii. Conquered by the Romans, who called it Cameracum, it fell into the power of the Franks in 445, then of the Normans, who devastated it in 880. Later included in the county of Hainaut, it made itself a free commune from 1076 onward. Louis XI occupied it in 1477; it then formed part of the Spanish Netherlands. In this city, in 1508, the celebrated League of C. was sealed between Pope Julius II, France and the Empire against Venice. A few years later, in 1529, the peace was signed there by Louise of Savoy in the name of her son Francis I, and by Margaret of Austria for her nephew Charles V. By the Peace of Nijmegen of 1677, C. was definitively annexed to France by Louis XIV.
The first evangelization of this region dates back, it seems, to St. Vedast, who around 500 founded a bishopric at Arras, transferred to C. toward the end of the 6th century. In 1093 Arras and C. formed two separate sees. The diocese of C. then extended as far as Antwerp. Among the 96 known bishops of C. there are 11 saints and 1 blessed. Other famous bishops of the diocese are Robert II of Geneva (the antipope Clement VII of the great Western Schism); Fénelon (1695-1715), called the Swan of C.; the cardinals d'Estrées, de la Trémoille, Dubois.
By the bull Super universas of 12 May 1559, C. was elevated to a metropolis with Arras, Tournai, Namur and St-Omer as suffragans; the concordat of 1801 reduced it to a simple suffragan of Paris; in 1841 it again became a metropolitan see with Arras as suffragan, to which in 1913 was also added Lille, recently created, with the districts of Lille, Hazebrouck and Dunkirk. The city of C., except for its ramparts - among them the castle of Selles and the Porte du Saint-Sépulcre (13th and 14th centuries) - has preserved few monuments of the past.
The archdiocese is made up of 4 archpresbyteries: that of C. with 9 deaneries, that of Douai with 7, that of Valenciennes with 8, that of Avesnes with 12. The patron of the diocese is St. Stephen. It has 873,199 inhabitants.
Bibliography9 works
Antonio Soirat