LAON. – An ancient diocese and the chief town of the département of Aisne, and the former capital of the Laonnois in northern France. Only the catalogue of the bishops preserved by Robert of Torigni is known (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, cod. no. 6042, p. 121v.); it is accurate from the sixth to the ninth century and after the middle of the tenth, but confused for the first half of that century, for which Fiodoardo’s chronicle is preferable.
The first bishop of L. instituted by St. Remigius was St. Gennobaudus, from the middle of the sixth century; among his successors are remembered Cainoaldus, a disciple of St. Columbanus, in the first half of the seventh century; Attelanus, his successor; Genebaudus II, to whom Pope Zacharias wrote in 748 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, no. 2287); Simeon, who signed the privilege of Corbie in 846; Edmulfus, from the second half of the ninth century; Dido (886–95); Rodolphus (d. 921); Bartolomeo de Jura (1113–1151); Roberto Le Cocq (1352–58); Pietro di Montaigut (1371–86), made a cardinal in 1383; Luigi di Bourbon Vendôme (1512–52), a cardinal from 1517; Cesare d’Estrées (1653–81), a cardinal from 1672; G. de Rochechouart de Faudoas (1741–77), a cardinal from 1761. The diocese was suppressed on 12 July 1790 by the French Revolution; the Concordat of 1802 united it with the see of Soissons.
The original cathedral of Notre-Dame, destroyed on 25 April 1112, was restored and consecrated by Bartolomeo de Jura on 29 August 1114; the new building arose between 1160 and 1220, contemporary with Notre-Dame of Paris; between 1160 and 1180 the apse and choir had been completed through the work of Gautier of Montague, and by 1220 the transept, the principal façade, the bell towers, the cloister, and the chapter house had also been completed. The whole inspired the architects of the abbeys of Braine (Aisne) and Mouzon (Ardennes). Between 1220 and 1350 the side chapels and the southern façade were added; in 1853 substantial restorations were completed. Imposing is the scene of the Last Judgment on the central portal.
In the Treasury of the cathedral of L. there is preserved a precious icon of Our Lord on two thin pinewood panels. It was sent from Rome in 1249 by Giacomo Pantaléon of Troyes, papal chaplain and first archdeacon of L., later Pope Urban IV, to the nuns of the Monastery of Montreuil-les-Dames, of which his sister Sibilla was superior.
Presso L., un mausoleo funerario medievale a forma centrale divenne nel medioevo una chiesa dei Templari (E. Lambert, L'église des Templars de Laon, in Revue archéologique, 24 [1926], pp. 224-26).
Fra le antiche abbazie della diocesi si ricordano quella benedettina di S. Martino e l'altra di S. Vincenzo fondata da Brunilde, vedova di Sigeberto I di Austrasia.