NANTES, Diocese of. – A city and diocese of Brittany, prefecture of the Loire-Inférieure department, 60 km from the Atlantic Ocean.
The diocese covers an area of 6,980 sq km with a population of 662,000, of whom 550,000 are Catholic. It comprises 277 parishes served by 937 secular priests and 150 regular clergy, two seminaries, 59 male religious communities and 461 female communities. It is a suffragan of Tours and its patrons are the martyrs Donatian and Rogatian.
It is the ancient Con-divicum, capital of Armorica, inhabited by the Namnetes tribe, from which the city takes its name. It was an administrative and commercial centre in Roman times and formed part of the Third Lugdunensis; its magistrates were expelled in 407 by the Breton Conian Mieradec. It suffered from invasions during the 5th and 6th centuries. In 560, Clotaire I entrusted its administration to Bishop Felix. The Normans occupied it in 843. After the assassination of Solomon, King of the Bretons, in 874, the Duchy was reconstituted in 936 by Alan Barbe-Torte, who expelled the Normans. Peter of Dreux made Nantes the capital of his duchy, fortified it and defended it in 1214 against John Lackland. In 1342 the Duke of Normandy occupied Nantes, taking prisoner John of Montfort. The city was unsuccessfully besieged by Edward III of England in 1345. Anne of Brittany, by marrying Charles VIII in 1491, brought the duchy as her dowry. In the 15th and 16th centuries Nantes was struck by epidemics. In 1598 King Henry IV signed the famous Edict of Nantes regulating relations between French Catholics and Calvinists. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was a centre of conspiracies and in 1789 it participated in the Revolution. Nantes suffered severe aerial bombardment in 1943 and 1944.
The catalogue of its bishops is provided by five collections: the two by St Albin (Aubin), the first up to Walter (1008–41), the second up to Robert (1170–85); that of the cartulary of Quimperlé, the collection of Robert of Torriche, which extends to Bernard (1148–69), and the great chronicle of Tours, which also includes Stephen de la Bruère (1213–27). L. Duchesne identified in the Quimperlé cartulary traces of an earlier redaction contemporary with Bishop Adelard. First on the list is St Clair, followed by Emius (?) and Similianus (mentioned by Gregory of Tours [In gloria martyrum, 59]), who had a church in his honour as early as the time of Clovis and is commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 16 June; Eusebius, who took part in the Council of Tours in 461; Nonnechius at that of Vannes; Epiphanius at that of Orléans in 511; Eumerius at those of 533 and 541 in the same city (his epitaph was composed by Fortunatus [Carmina, IV, 19]); Felix (549–82), a descendant of a distinguished family from Aquitaine that had consuls and praetorian prefects, attended the Councils of Tours in 567 and of Paris in 573; after 565 he dedicated the cathedral and carried out many works in the city. More recent prelates include Cardinal Robert Guibé in 1507; Cardinal John of Lorraine, apostolic administrator between 1542 and 1553; Charles of Bourbon (1550–54); Mgr Cospeau (1621–36); J. P. Duvoisin (1802–13); A. L. Laroche (1893–95).
The martyrs of Nantes were the holy brothers Rogatian and Donatian, noted in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 24 May. Rogatian is said to have been martyred while still a catechumen, because of the flight of the absent priest, according to the Passio (BHL, 2275); the basilica of the two martyrs is mentioned by St Gregory of Tours (In gloria martyrum, 59), who also points to a basilica in honour of the Milanese martyr St Nazarius (ibid., 60) in a certain district, today St-Nazaire, sub-prefecture of Loire-Inférieure.
The cathedral, built of white stone, is dedicated to the Apostles Peter and Paul. Begun by his predecessor, Bishop Felix completed it in the year 567. Venantius Fortunatus, who was a guest of Felix in his villa on the Loire, composed a poem in honour of the grand basilica with its three naves in the form of a tripartite hall; from the centre, on a square base, rose a dome supported by arches and decorated with mosaics that reflected and softened the strongest rays of the sun, giving the impression that the decorations moved with the rays themselves. When, at night, the traveller passed near the sanctuary, he believed that even the earth had its stars, and all around was plunged in darkness while the basilica, with its lamps, reflected the light of day (Miscell., lib. III, 6–7). Fortunatus sings the praises of the Prince of the Apostles (III, 7) and recalls that Bishop Felix, at the dedication of the basilica, deposited relics of St Ferreolus, St Hilary and St Martin (Carm., III, 7, 55). The building by Felix was restored by Bishop Guerech around 986 after the Norman invasion; it was fortified around 910 by Bishop Fulcherius; and in the 12th century it was replaced by a Romanesque church of which only the crypt survives, discovered in 1886 beneath the present choir.
Duke John V began the Gothic cathedral in 1434 according to the designs of Mathelin Rodier; the entire structure was completed only between 1840 and 1893. It contains the tombs of Francis II of Brittany (d. 1488), his second wife Margaret of Foix, Arthur III Duke of Brittany and General Lamoricière ([V. 1806–65]). The portals depict episodes from the lives of the Apostles Peter and Paul and of SS Donatian and Rogatian. The cathedral suffered greatly in the bombings of 1944, when the sacristy, the library and the chapter archives were burned. On the southern side of the cathedral stands the Chapter House, known as the Psallette, from the 16th century, now used as a museum of religious art. The nearby Porte St-Pierre houses a “Musée de Nantes par l’image,” with a collection of iconographic documents relating to the history of the city and its architectural transformations. Excavations near the cathedral brought to light two piscinae, identified as two successive baptisteries belonging to the ancient church of St John, known in the 9th century (A. Cahour, Découverte du baptistère primitif de la cathédrale de N., in Bull. de la Soc. archéol. de N., 1876, pp. 273 ff.; G. Durville, Les fouilles de l'évêché de N. en 1910–11, in Bull. archéol. du Comité des travaux histor., 1912, pp. 222–64; L. Maître, Observations sur les fouilles de la cour de l'évêché et de la porte St-Pierre, in Bull. de la Soc. archéol. de N., 1913, pp. 469–99).
Other churches in Nantes include that of St Similianus; the present building occupies the same site as the original, which lay beneath it and had three naves divided by four columns on each side; more than 150 superimposed tombs have been found there, arranged in three layers and consisting of stone or limestone sarcophagi or slate slabs; the upper layer had been devastated (L. De Lasteyrie, Les fouilles de St Similien de N., in Bull. archéol. du Comité des travaux histor., 1896, pp. 500–11; L. Maître, L'église de St-Similien de N., in Bull. de la Soc. archéol. de N., 1896, pp. 174 ff.); that of the Immaculate Conception, founded in 1460 by Duke Francis II; and that of the Holy Cross.
founded on the ruins of a pagan temple (the interior with three naves dates to 1685, as does the portal; the choir dates to 1840); of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port or S. Luigi (domed) built between 1844–58; of S. Anna, on the hill of the Hermitage; of S. Nicola, erected in 1844 in Gothic style. In the suburb of N., in the cemetery of S. Donaziano, stands the church of S. Stefano, near which many superimposed limestone sarcophagi were identified. Among the shrines venerated in the diocese, the following are noted in N. itself: Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours and, in the church of S. Similiano, Notre-Dame-de-la-Miséricorde; at Orvault, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Garant. The abbey of Melleray, founded by Alano di Maidon in 1145, originally Cistercian and from 1817 of the Reformed Cistercians, has a 12th-century church with a 15th-century façade and 16th-century choir (Cottineau, II, col. 1813). A Merovingian cemetery with eight white-stone sarcophagi and two with slate slabs was uncovered during excavations in 1910–13 beneath the ancient episcopal palace north of the Cathedral; one of the sarcophagi was decorated with a series of crosses; within, coins of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald were collected. Eighteen violated Merovingian sarcophagi were discovered in the chapel of S. Andrea (G. Durville, *Les cercueils mérovingiens de la chapelle de St.-André*, in *Bull. de la Soc. archéol. et hist. de N.*, 1923, pp. 47–94).
The ancient residence of the Dukes of Brittany until the 14th century, an imposing Gothic and Renaissance fortress, now houses the museums of decorative arts and regional folk art. The Dorbé Museum (1820–95) also contains a rich collection of archaeology, painting, tapestries, enamels, and illuminated manuscripts; the municipal Beaux-Arts Museum, built in 1893, holds a rich series of paintings from the Flemish, Italian, and especially French schools from the primitives to the 19th century. It is augmented by the local *Société des Amis du Musée*.
EDICT OF NANTES
Edict issued by Henry IV, King of France, on 13 April 1598, to regulate relations between the French public authority and Catholicism on the one hand and the French Reformed (Huguenots) on the other, and to consolidate the political unity of France. It consisted of 95 articles, later supplemented by a further 56 and two “patents,” and aimed to establish, after the religious wars that had torn France from 1562 to 1593, a peaceful coexistence between the two religious confessions in conflict. The Huguenots were granted full freedom of conscience and worship in areas where it had been practiced in 1596, excluding Paris and a five-league radius around it, equality of civil rights, access to all offices, participation in schools and charitable institutions, the right to receive donations, and special guarantees in the Parlement of Paris and in part in other parlements and in legal proceedings. Moreover, they were permitted to retain control for eight years of the cities, fortresses, and castles they occupied in 1598—about 150 in total—appointing their own governors. Thus, the Reformed constituted not only a religious sect but also a political party; a state within a state. It is no wonder, then, that the Edict aroused the remonstrances of the Holy See and the opposition of the parlements, which the king managed to overcome, though he could not quell the factionalism of the Reformed, who, after his death, continued to hold political assemblies despite explicit prohibitions, and even organized militarily in 1670 with the support of England, fomenting conspiracies and uprisings. Forced to surrender the places they held, they entrenched themselves in Montauban and La Rochelle, from which Louis XIII dislodged them in 1628. However, the Edict of Grace (*Nîmes, July 1629*), which followed, while reducing the political importance of the Edict of Nantes, still recognized the free exercise of Reformed worship in view of their peaceful conversion. Cardinal Richelieu, in fact, believed he could achieve this, while the Huguenots as early as 1629 were already seeking aid even from Spain. And since their seditious agitation and foreign entanglements showed no signs of ceasing, Louis XIV in 1661 adopted a repressive system to complement the persuasive efforts of eminent ecclesiastics such as Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Fénelon. The ordinances in this regard progressively worsened the conditions of the Reformed until the infamous *dragonnades* were introduced—compelling Huguenots to billet passing troops and turning a blind eye to the excesses these troops committed, in the hope that this would serve to convert the most obstinate through the hardships to which they were exposed. This method, begun in 1681 in Poitou and Béarn, was extended in subsequent years to other regions, despite protests from many Catholics. The number of conversions obtained was exaggerated, and not all were sincere.
As these measures grew ever more stringent, Protestantism was effectively eliminated from the official life of the country, and the assembly of the clergy had only to demand that the few surviving concessions be withdrawn from the Protestants. The last resistance of the king was overcome by the united efforts of his confessor, Fr. La Chaise, the Archbishop of Paris, Madame de Maintenon (who had become the king’s wife), and Chancellor Michel Le Tellier, who drafted the text of revocation, which the king signed on 18 October 1685 and which the parlements registered four days later.
With this act, he prohibited the exercise of Reformed worship.