FRIBURGO in BRIGOVIA, DIOCESE of. – It is the metropolitan see of the suffragan dioceses of Mainz and Rottenburg and covers an area of 16,212 sq km. Of its 2,530,490 inhabitants, 1,545,645 are Catholics. The archdiocese has 1,755 churches with 983 parishes; there are 1,706 secular priests and 331 religious priests; in 1945 it had 241 seminarians. In 42 male religious houses live 811 religious; in 1,044 female religious houses live 8,144 women religious; there are 188 charitable institutions (1948).
The ecclesiastical province of F. is called the ecclesiastical province of Upper Rhineland and comprises parts of Baden and Hohenzollern.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION. – The archdiocese was founded in 1821 within the territory of the six dioceses of Constance, Strasbourg, Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Würzburg. The first archbishop was Bernard Roll, appointed in 1827. Archbishop Ignaz Demeter (1836–42) showed himself weak in the face of the imperialism of the State, especially in the controversy concerning mixed marriages. Archbishop Hermann V. Wicari (1843–68) fought against the so-called Altkatholizismus. In 1860 state imperialism came to an end, but certain anticlerical laws concerning the school, marriage, and the education of the clergy remained in force. In 1876 the simultaneous school (mixed religious school) was introduced, with the Church directing religious instruction. In 1897 the well-known Caritas-Verband was founded in F.
MONASTERIES. — At one time the city of F. had 30 monasteries, the best known of which were those of the Knights Hospitaller, the Teutonic Knights, and the Franciscans. In the monastery of St. Martin, now a parish house, lived the Franciscan master Bertoldo Schwarz, inventor of gunpowder. The Dominicans lived in F. from 1236 until 1794; in 1240 Alberto Magno (v.) lived and taught here. Battista Giovanni Schwelm, knight and burgomaster of F., founded the Carthusian monastery of Mount St. John the Baptist, which was suppressed in 1782 (Cottineau, I, col. 1822). The Jesuits were in F. from 1620 until 1673, teaching at the University. At present, in the diocese of F., there are 23 male Orders and 15 female ones.
CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS. — In F., the Albert Ludwig University was founded in 1437; it currently has 4,000 students. Until 1900, it was the university of the Catholics of Upper Austria, Swabia, Alsace, and German-speaking Switzerland.
In F., the archdiocese has a college for theology students and gymnasium pupils, as well as an institute of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, a secondary school of the Ursulines, and a girls’ school of the Franciscans. F. is home to the central headquarters of the German Caritas-Verband (Verthuanxhaus), with schools, libraries, and publishing houses. The archdiocese also possesses an archiepiscopal missionary institute.
MONUMENTS. — Among the numerous medieval buildings that existed in F. until the period of the 1939–45 war, the most delightful is the cathedral of Our Lady, that is, the only Gothic-style cathedral in Germany to have been completed as early as the Middle Ages. Its tower is the finest and also the earliest of the Gothic period, thanks to the felicitous upward development of the octagonal tower and its tracery, the work of H. Holbrin, innior. Also very famous is the altarpiece by Baldung Grien, from 1512–16.
The churches of S. Martino, dating from 1490 and containing the monument to Bertoldo Schwarz, and the Baroque church of the University, also called the Jesuit church, built from 1685 to 1701, are likewise well known, as is the chapel of S. Michele in the old cemetery, with its famous depictions of the Danza macabre from 1800. Among the secular buildings, mention should be made of the market, built in the early Gothic and Renaissance styles from 1525 to 1532, and the old and modern town halls, both built between 1543 and 1582.