NÎMES, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the department of Gard, at the foot of the hills of Garrigues, in southern France.
Its boundaries correspond to those of the department of Gard and extend over 5825 sq km, with a population of over 395,000 inhabitants, of whom 296,000 are Catholics, distributed in 289 parishes and 35 vicariates served by 407 diocesan priests and 48 regulars; it has two seminaries, major and minor, the presbyteral schools of Alès and Le Vigan; 9 male religious communities and 31 female.
The origin of the city is represented by the famous fontaine whose genius, Nemausus, gave it its name. It was the capital of the Volcae Arecomici, or inhabitants of the flat country; around it Strabo records 24 oppida. The Volcae submitted to the Romans ca. 120 B.C. Augustus founded the "Colonia Augusta Nemausensis," distributing the lands to his veterans after the victory in Egypt; these introduced there the cult of Isis and Serapis. Hadrian, returning from Britain, stopped there and erected a basilica in honor of Plotina. N. reached its apogee under Antoninus Pius. It passed under the Franks in 737 and by Louis VIII was united to the crown of France. It suffered greatly in the religious struggles of the 16th and 17th centuries and a large part of its churches were damaged by the Huguenots.
Christianity at N. is attested in the first place by the martyr Baudilius, commemorated on May 20 in the first redaction of the Jeronymian Martyrology: Nemauso Baudilis martyris. An inscription bears the date of May 21 and invokes for the deceased the protection of the martyr: martyr Baudelias per passionis die Domino dulcam suum commendat aluminum (E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, Paris 1857, p. 708). An entire chapter of St. Gregory of Tours is dedicated to his "glorious tomb" (In gloria martyrum, 77). The cult of St. Baudilius was widespread also in Spain (E. Hübner, Inscriptions Hispaniae christianae, Berlin 1871, p. 255; F. Fita, in Boletín de la Academia de la Historia, 25 [1894], p. 143). An incomplete and disordered episcopal catalogue of N. is preserved in a lectionary of the 13th century, formerly of the Cathedral and now in the municipal Library (no. 14, f. 218); L. Duchesne reestablished the series of bishops, of whom the first is Sedatus, who was at the Council of Agde in 506; then John in the time of Theodoric (Gregory of Tours, In gloria martyrum, 77); Pelagius, present at the Council of Toledo in 589, where Remessarius was present at that of 633.
The Cathedral (Notre-Dame-et-St-Castor), according to tradition, would have been built over an ancient temple of Augustus. It was consecrated in 1096 by Urban V, returning from Clermont, who held a Council there (1096). In the interior is a Christian sarcophagus from Arles with Jesus Christ among the twelve Apostles (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pl. 43, 5, p. 48), and beside it stands the monument of Card. F. J. de Bernis.
A cemetery of the 4th century, used until the Carolingian era, was identified in the square of the Vieux-Chapitre near the Cathedral. It is perhaps part of the same cemetery discovered in 1920, in which it was established that the present Cathedral is built over an ancient one with three naves, divided by columns with an adjacent cemetery area (E. Esperandieu, Fouilles de 1920 sur la place aux Herbes, in Le vieux N., 1932, pp. 1-8; H. Beauquier, Le vieux N., in Bull. de la Commiss. municip. d'archéol., 1940, no. 16; R. Lantier, Rsch. archéol. en 1940, 1941, 1942, in Gallia, 3 [1944], pp. 288-89).
The diocese was suppressed in 1801 and reestablished in 1821. The bishop of N. is also titular of the two suppressed dioceses of Alais and Ugès. Alais (from 1926, Alès), the ancient Aristum, was created a diocese ca. 570; suppressed in the 8th century, reconstituted in 1690, definitively suppressed with the French Revolution. The Cathedral was dedicated to St. John. Uzès, the ancient Ulcétia, has as its first known bishop Constantius, present at the Council of Vaison in 442. The Cathedral was dedicated to the patron St. Theodoretus (L. Duchesne, Fastes épisc. de l'ancienne Gaule, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1907, pp. 314-16 ff.).
Sanctuaries venerated in the diocese of N. are Notre-Dame-de-Grâce at Rochefort, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce at Laval, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours of Prime Combe, Notre-Dame-de-Bonheur near Vallerangues; Notre-Dame de Vauvert; Notre-Dame de Belzevet on Mount Audaire. In the Museum are fragments of Christian sarcophagi (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, p. 123, 306 and pl. 238, 3). A fragment of a Christian sarcophagus is at the Meunier de Salinelles property (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pp. 247, 249, pl. 216, 8); other fragments are known through a copy by Rulmann (id., ibid., p. 319, fig. 200). A fragment of an inscription, not earlier than the 6th century, commemorates two spouses who "in matrimonio gesserunt inter se confidentes in Deo pietate, amore, caritate, castitate" (CIL, XII, 4057).
Born at N. were: Domitius Afer, the teacher of Quintilian; Castor, bishop of Apt (d. 419); J. Nicot, who imported tobacco into France (1560); the historians F. Guizot (1787-1880) and E. Denis (1849-1921); A. and E. Daudet, the archaeologist G. Boissier (1823-1908). From the diocese of N., that is from St-Gilles, came Pope Clement IV (1265-68), who lavished favors on the monasteries of the city.
The amphitheater, today called "les Arènes," was built in the 1st century A.D.; transformed into a fortress by the Visigoths; in the Middle Ages defended by the "Chevaliers des Arènes"; in the 13th century 2000 inhabitants settled there, who also had a chapel.
The so-called Maison carrée was erected by Agrippa in honor of Gaius and Lucius, nephews of Augustus. It was called Capduel (a corruption of Capitolium) and only from the 16th century maison carrée, an improper designation because the building is longer than it is wide. From the 11th century it served various uses; now it is the seat of the Musée des Antiquités with very rich Gallo-Roman collections. The so-called "temple of Diana" is part of a Roman bath building of the Hadrianic age (117-30); in the Middle Ages it became the church of an abbey of Benedictine nuns.
The ancient college of the Jesuits is today partly a lycée, partly an archaeological museum that contains in 10 rooms a rich epigraphic collection. The chapel of the Jesuits (1678) has been transformed into a gallery of ancient sculptures. N. has an academy to which Louis XIV granted the same privileges as the Académie de France. At 19 km from N. is St-Gilles, the ancient Vallis Flaviana, seat of an abbey founded by St. Giles over an area donated in the 8th century by the Visigothic king Wamba. The abbey church, dedicated to St. Giles, was begun in 1116 and is a notable example of Gothic art in southern France and preserves in the crypt the tomb of St. Giles with the inscription of the 11th century: in hoc tumulo quiescit corpus beati Aegidii.