NANTES, Diocese of. - City and diocese of Brittany, prefecture of the department of Loire-Inférieure, 60 km. from the Atlantic Ocean.
The diocese has an area of 6,980 sq km. with 662,000 inhabitants, of whom 550,000 are Catholics. It has 277 parishes served by 937 secular priests and 150 regulars, 2 seminaries; it has 59 male religious communities and 461 female. It is a suffragan of Tours and has as its patrons the martyrs Donatian and Rogatian.
It is the ancient Condivicum, capital of Armorica, inhabited by the tribe of the Namnetes, whence the name of the city: it was an administrative and commercial center in Roman times and formed part of the third Lugdunensis; its magistrates were driven out in 407 by the Breton Conian Meriadec. It suffered from invasions during the 5th and 6th centuries. In 560 Chlothar I entrusted its administration to Bishop Felix. The Normans occupied it in 843. After Salomon king of the Bretons was assassinated in 874, the Duchy was reconstituted in 936 by Alan Twisted-Beard, who drove out the Normans. Peter of Dreux made N. the capital of his Duchy, fortified it and defended it in 1214 against John Lackland. In 1342 the duke of Normandy occupied N., taking John of Montfort prisoner there. The city was besieged in vain by Edward III of England in 1345. Anne of Brittany, by marrying Charles VIII in 1491, brought him the Duchy as her dowry. In the 15th and 16th centuries N. was struck by epidemic. In 1598 King Henry IV signed the famous "Edict of N." concerning relations between Catholics and French Calvinists. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was a center of conspiracies; in 1789 it took part in the Revolution. N. was heavily hit by air bombardments in 1943 and 1944.
The catalogue of its bishops is given by five collections: the two of St. Alban (Aubin), the first down to Walter (1008-41), the second down to Robert (1170-85); that of the cartulary of Quimperlé, the collection of Robert of Torigni, which goes down to Bernard (1148-69), and the great chronicle of Tours which also includes Stephen de la Bruère (1213-1227). L. Duchesne recognized in the cartulary of Quimperlé the traces of an older redaction contemporary with Bishop Adelard. First in the list is St. Clarus, followed by Emius (?) and by Similianus (recalled by Gregory of Tours [*In gloria martyrum, 59]), who had a church in his honor there from the time of Clovis, and is recalled by the Jeronymian Martyrology on 16 June; Eusebius who took part in the Council of Tours of 461; Nonnechius at that of Vannes, Epiphanius at that of Orléans of 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 an illustrious family originally from Aquitaine which had consuls and praetorian prefects, took part in the Councils of Tours of 567 and of Paris in 573; after 565 he dedicated the Cathedral and had much work carried out in the city. In recent times are recalled Card. Robert Guibé in 1507; Card. John of Lorraine, apostolic administrator between 1542 and 1553; Charles of Bourbon (1550-54); Msgr. Cospeau (1621-36); J. P. Duvoisin (1802-13); A. L. Laroche (1893-95).
The martyrs of N. were the Sts. brothers Rogatian and Donatian, whom the Jeronymian Martyrology marks on 24 May. Rogatian is said to have been martyred while still a catechumen, on account of the sacerdotis absentia fugitiva, according to the Passio (BHL, 2275); the basilica of the two martyrs is recalled by St. Gregory of Tours (In gloria martyrum, 59), who also points out in the territory of N. a basilica in honor of the Milanese martyr St. Nazarius (ibid., 60), in vico quodam, today St-Nazaire, a subprefecture of Loire-Inférieure.
The Cathedral, in white stone, is dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul. Begun by his predecessor, Bishop Felix completed it ca. the year 567. Venantius Fortunatus, who was a guest of Felix in his villa on the Loire, dedicated a poem to the grandiose basilica with its three naves aulæ formæ triformis; from the center, on a quadrangular base, rose a dome supported by arches and decorated with mosaics that reflected, tempering them, the strongest rays of the sun, giving the impression that the decorations moved together with the rays themselves, and when at night the traveler passed near the sanctuary he believed that the earth too had its stars and all around was plunged in darkness while the Basilica reflected with its lamps 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, also deposited there relics of St. Ferreolus, of St. Hilary and of St. Martin (Carm., III, 7, 55). Felix's building was restored by Bishop Guerech, ca. 986, after the Norman invasion; it was fortified ca. 910 by Bishop Fulcherius; and it was replaced in the 12th century 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 on the designs of Mathelin Rodier; the whole was completed only between 1840 and 1893. There are found the tombs of Francis II of Brittany (d. 1488), of his second wife Margaret of Foix, of Arthur III duke of Brittany and of General Lamoricière ([v.] 1806-61). In the portals are represented episodes from the lives of the apostles Peter and Paul and of Sts. Donatian and Rogatian. The Cathedral suffered greatly from the bombardments of 1944 in which the sacristy, the Library and the capitular Archive burned. On the southern side of the Cathedral stands the house of the Chapter called the Piallette, of the 16th century, today used as a museum of religious art. The nearby Porte St-Pierre contains a "Musée de N. par l'image", with a collection of iconographic documents relating to the history of the city and its architectural transformations. In the explorations carried out near the Cathedral two pools came to light, 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, p. 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 of N.: that of St. Similianus; the present one occupies the same place as the primitive one beneath it and had three naves divided by four columns on each side; there have been found in it over 150 tombs superimposed in three layers and consisting of sarcophagi in stone or limestone or of 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; of St. Croix, founded on the ruins of a pagan temple (the interior with three naves is from 1685 like the portal, the choir is from 1840); of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port or St. Louis (with a dome) built between 1844-58; of St. Anne, on the hill of the Hermitage, of St. Nicholas, erected in 1844 in Gothic style. In the suburb of N., in the cemetery of St. Donatian, stands the church of St. Stephen, near which many superimposed limestone sarcophagi were identified. Among the sanctuaries venerated in the diocese are recalled in N. itself: Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours and, in the church of St. Similianus, Notre-Dame-de-la-Miséricorde; at Orvault, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Garant. The abbey of Melleray, founded by Alan of Maidon in 1145, first of the Cistercians and from 1817 of the reformed Cistercians, has the 12th-century church with a 15th-century facade and a 16th-century choir (Cottineau, II, col. 1813). A Merovingian cemetery with eight sarcophagi of white stone and two with slate slabs was found during the excavations of 1910-13 beneath the old episcopal palace north of the Cathedral; one of the sarcophagi was decorated with a series of crosses; inside were collected coins of Charlemagne, of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald. Eighteen violated sarcophagi of Merovingian age were discovered in the chapel of St. Andrew (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 from as early as the 14th century, an imposing Gothic and Renaissance fortress, today houses the museums of decorative art and regional folk art. The Dobrée Museum (1820-95), moreover, contains a rich collection of archaeology, painting, tapestries, enamels and illuminated manuscripts; the municipal "des Beaux Arts" museum, built in 1893, gathers a rich series of paintings from the various Flemish, Italian and especially French schools from the primitives to the 19th century. It is augmented by the local "Société des Amis du Musée."
BIBLI. Eubel, I, pp. 355-56; II, p. 198; III, pp. 252-53; IV, p. 252; G. Menier, Essai sur l'hist. de la ville et du comté de N., Nantes 1872; J. Lallié, Le diocèse de N. pendant la Révolution, ivi 1883; B. Maitre, De la forme et de l'âge des premières églises chrétiennes dans la Loire infér. in Bull. archéol. du Comité des travaux hist., 1893, p. 30 seg.; G. Boyle, The Irish College in N., Londra 1901; L. Maitre, Les substructions du chevet de la cathédrale de N., in Bull. archéol. du Comité des travaux histor., 1906, pp. 261-81; L. Duchesne, Faites épisc. de l'ancien. Gaule, II, 2e ed., Parigi 1910, pp. 360-71; G. Durville, Les familles de l'évêché de N. (1910-13), supplém. al Bull. de la Société archéol. de N. et de la Loire infér., 1913; M. Du Halgaut, N. Ses relations commerciales avec les îles d'Amérique au XVIIIe siècle, Parigi 1940; A. Durand, N. dans la France de l'Ouest, ivi 1941; Guide de la France chrétien. et missionn., 1948-49, ivi 1948, pp. 365, 652-46, 1065-68.
Enrico Josi
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, completed shortly afterward by another 56 and by two "brevets," and aimed to create, after the religious wars that had torn France apart from 1562 to 1593, a peaceful coexistence between the two religious confessions in conflict. The Huguenots were granted complete freedom of conscience and worship in the areas where this was practiced in 1596, excluding Paris and five leagues around it, equality of civil rights, access to all offices, participation in schools and charitable institutions, the right to receive donations, particular guarantees in the Parliament of Paris and in part also in the other parliaments and in trials. Moreover, they had the right to keep in their power for eight years the cities, fortresses, and castles they occupied in 1598, about 150, appointing their governors. Thus the Reformed constituted not only a religious sect but a political party; a state within the state. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Edict aroused the remonstrances of the Holy See and the opposition of the parliaments, which the sovereign managed to overcome; but he did not manage to overcome the factiousness of the Reformed, who continued, after his death, to hold political assemblies, although these were expressly forbidden to them, and to organize themselves militarily as well in 1670 with the support of England, promoting conspiracies and revolts. Forced to surrender the places they held, they barricaded themselves in Montauban and La Rochelle, from which Louis XIII dislodged them in 1628. However, the Edict of Grace (Nîmes, July 1629) that followed, while it reduced the political importance of the Edict of N., still recognized the free exercise of worship by the Reformed with a view to their peaceful conversion. Cardinal Richelieu indeed thought he would succeed in this, while they as early as 1629 were seeking help even from Spain. And since their seditious agitations and their relations with foreign powers showed no sign of ceasing, Louis XIV in 1661 adopted toward them a repressive system that was to accompany the work of persuasion carried on by the most illustrious churchmen, such as Bossuet, Bourdaloue and Fénelon. The ordinances on the matter aggravated from year to year the conditions of the Reformed until they reached the famous dragonnades, which consisted in obliging the Reformed to quarter passing troops in their homes and in turning a blind eye to the excesses these troops would commit, in the hope that this would serve the conversion of the most stubborn in view of the vexations to which they were exposed. This method, begun in 1681 in Poitou and Béarn, was extended in the following years to other regions as well, despite the protests of many Catholics. The number of conversions obtained was exaggerated, and certainly not all were sincere.
With the ever more rapid succession of such measures, Protestantism was practically eliminated from the official life of the country, and the assembly of the clergy had only to request that the few surviving concessions be forbidden to the Protestants. The king's last resistances were overcome by the combined efforts of his confessor, Fr. La Chaise, the Archbishop of Paris, Madame de Maintenon, who had become the king's wife, and the chancellor Michel Le Tellier, who prepared the text of revocation, which the king signed on 18 October 1685 and the parliaments registered four days later.
By this he prohibited the exercise of Reformed worship, ordered the destruction of the temples, and commanded the pastors to leave France within 15 days. Other ordinances then followed, directed at preventing the Reformed from leaving France and at restricting the new converts to the observance of the precepts of Catholicism. Many Reformed preferred to take refuge abroad, and the number of these refugees is estimated at around 200,000, with undeniable harm to French industry and commerce, and there were not a few who enlisted in the armies hostile to France and its allies. The decree of 1685 was generally received favorably by the French, perhaps mindful of Huguenot abuses, and, although softened afterward, it remained in force until 1789, when the Reformed were placed on an equal footing with other citizens.