LAON. - Ancient diocese and capital city of the department of Aisne and ancient capital of the Laonnois in northern France. Only the catalogue of bishops preserved by Robert of Torigni is known (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, cod. no. 6042, p. 121v.), accurate from the 6th to the 9th century and after the middle of the 10th, but confused for the first half of that same century, for which the chronicle of Flodoard is preferable instead.
The first bishop of L., instituted by St. Remigius, is St. Gennobaudus of the mid-6th century; among his successors are remembered Cainoaldus, a disciple of St. Columbanus, first half of the 7th century; Attelanus, his successor; Genebaudus II, to whom Pope Zachary wrote in 748 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, no. 2287); Simeon who signed the privilege of Corbie in 846; Edmulf of the second half of the 9th century; Dido (886-95); Rudolph (d. 921); Bartholomew de Jura (1113-1151); Robert Le Cocq (1352-58), Peter of Montaigut (1371-86) created cardinal in 1383; Louis of Bourbon Vendôme (1512-52), cardinal from 1517; César d'Estrées (1653-81), cardinal from 1672; G. de Rochechouart de Faudoas (1741-77), cardinal from 1761. The diocese was suppressed on 12 July 1790 by the French Revolution; the Concordat of 1802 united it to the see of Soissons.
The primitive cathedral of Notre-Dame, destroyed on 25 Apr. 1112, was restored and consecrated by Bartholomew de Jura on 29 Aug. 1114; the new building arose between 1160 and 1220, contemporary with Notre-Dame of Paris; between 1160 and 1180 the apse and choir were completed through the work of Gautier of Montague, and by 1220 also the transept, the main façade, the bell towers, the cloister and the chapter hall. The ensemble inspired the architects of the abbeys of Braine (Aisne) and Mouzon (Ardennes). Between 1220 and 1350 the side chapels and the south façade were added; in 1853 notable restorations were completed. The scene of the Last Judgment in the central portal is imposing.
In the Treasury of the cathedral of L. is preserved a precious icon of Our Lord on two thin pine panels. It was sent from Rome in 1249 by Giacomo Pantaléon of Troyes, pontifical chaplain and first archdeacon of L., later Pope Urban IV, to the nuns of the Monastery of Montreuil-les-Dames, in which his sister Sibylla was superior.
The icon had been brought to Rome from the East either by ambassadors of Orthodox princes or by legates sent from Rome (perhaps by Innocent IV) to Slavic countries. The icon is a Russian copy of the 12th century of a Byzantine original of the 12th century, as the Slavic inscription indicates: Image of the Lord on the handkerchief (A. Grabar, La Sainte Face de Laon. Le Mandylion dans l'art orthodoxe, Prague 1931).
Near L., a medieval funerary mausoleum of central plan became in the Middle Ages a church of the Templars (E. Lambert, L'église des Templars de Laon, in Revue archéologique, 24 [1926], pp. 224-26).
Among the ancient abbeys of the diocese are remembered the Benedictine one of St. Martin and the other of St. Vincent founded by Brunhilda, widow of Sigebert I of Austrasia.
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Enrico Josi