LORCH. - In the suburbs of Enns, in Upper Austria, the ancient Laureacum; about A.D. 190, a fortress was established to protect the Roman bridge over the Enns and the river port on the Danube; under Caracalla the civil settlement received municipal rights. In 304 s. Floriano and his companions suffered martyrdom there.
About the year 400, as a result of continual wars, the city was transferred within the enclosure of the fortress and survived until the 9th century. It was then also the seat of a bishop; the Vita s. Severini by Eugippio mentions a Costanzo (ch. 30) and recalls at least two churches (ibid., ch. 28). The Notitia dignitatum states that the legion II Italica, the classis Laureacensis, the lanciarii Laureacenses resided at L., and that there was an arms factory there.
Recent excavations have established that two Christian cemeteries existed near L., together with a church of the Alpine type (a rectangular hall, with an internal apse dating from the 6th century), and that the present cemetery church, S. Lorenzo, occupies the site of the early Christian episcopal basilica. That L. was the seat of an archbishopric (first archbishop: s. Massimiliano di Celeia, late 3rd century), transferred in 739 to Passavia, is a medieval invention intended to secure metropolitan rights for Passavia (v. PASSAVIA).