CAMBRAI, ARCHDIOCESE of. — Situated on the left bank of the Scheldt, C. was, together with Tournai and Bavay, the capital of the country of the Nervii. Conquered by the Romans, who called it Cameracum, it fell under the power of the Franks in 445, and subsequently of the Normans, who devastated it in 880. Later incorporated into the county of Hainaut, it became a free commune in 1076. Louis XI occupied it in 1477; thereafter it formed part of the Spanish Netherlands. In this city, in 1508,
the famous League of C. was concluded 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 on behalf of her son Francis I, and by Margaret of Austria on behalf of her nephew Charles V. In the Peace of Nijmegen of 1677, C. was definitively annexed to France by Louis XIV.
The first evangelization of this region dates, it seems, from St. Vedastus, who around 500 founded a bishopric at Arras, transferred to C. toward the end of the sixth century. In 1093 Arras and C. became two separate sees. The diocese of C. then extended as far as Antwerp. Among the 96 known bishops of C. are 11 saints and 1 blessed. Other celebrated bishops of the diocese include Robert II of Geneva (the antipope Clement VII of the Great Western Schism); Fénelon (1695–1715), known as the Swan of C.; and the cardinals d’Estrées, de la Trémoille, and Dubois.
By the bull Super universas of 12 May 1559, C. was raised to a metropolitan see, 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 Lille, newly created, was added in 1913, together with the districts of Lille, Hazebrouck, and Dunkirk. The city of C., apart from its ramparts—including the Château de Selles and the Holy Sepulchre Gate (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries)—has preserved few monuments of the past.
The archdiocese consists of 4 archpriesthoods: C., with 9 deaneries; Douai, with 7; Valenciennes, with 8; and Avesnes, with 12. The patron saint of the diocese is St. Stephen. It has 873,199 inhabitants.