RODEZ, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the department of Aveyron (France). The diocese extends over the ancient region of Rouergue and the present department of Aveyron. It has an area of 8,743 sq km, a population of 507,000 Catholics, distributed among 650 parishes, served by 908 diocesan priests and 27 regulars; it has a major seminary and 4 minor seminaries; 8 male religious communities and 35 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 240).
R. has been a provincial capital since Gallo-Roman times, as the chief town of the "civitas Rutenorum" which was part of Aquitania prima. There is no doubt that its function as a metropolis goes back to the Gallic era, since it was at the center of the country of the free Ruteni, who resisted Caesar even after Alesia (the provincial Ruteni, those of the Albigeois, had been subdued as early as 121 B.C.). On its hill with steep slopes, dominating a ring formed by the Aveyron, the city occupied an area perfectly suited for an "oppidum." Once sparsely populated, it became instead overpopulated in the 18th century, while the department today, along with a secure economic ascent, combines a disturbing depopulation.
Situated in a region difficult of access, with deficient means of communication with the outside until the middle of the 19th century, the Rouergue and its capital were not the theater of very notable military events; but it was several times a frontier, a place of passage hard contested from the Merovingians to the Visigoths, from the Carolingians to the dukes of Aquitaine, especially during the Hundred Years' War, before and after the cession to the English.
The boundaries of the county of R. (distinct from that of Rouergue, united with that of Toulouse) kept diminishing with the growth of the power of the lords; Raymond of St-Gilles, setting out for the Crusade, had promised it to Richard viscount of Millau, a promise turned into a sale in 1112. After a period of prosperity, in which it distinguished itself especially by protecting the troubadours, the first dynasty of the counts of R. died out with Henry II in 1304 and the county passed to the family of Armagnac, its heiress Cecilia having married Count Bernard. Strong in their domains, the d'Armagnac conducted a policy of proud independence, suited to the state of mind of their subjects, but which has left certain traces in them. Count John, in 1368, put himself at the head of the lords of Gascony to protest against the hearth-tax and the appeal to Charles V against the King of England served as the starting point for liberating the province, ceded to the English at Brétigny (1360). R. was the first city of the Midi to shake off the yoke, a fine title of glory for its dynasty. But the constable Bernard VII, after having dominated France at the head of his "Armagnacs," died tragically in 1418 when the Burgundians occupied Paris. Even sadder was the end of his family. John V died fighting during the capture of Lectoure (1742). The county passed to the family of Albret and was reunited to the crown after the accession to the throne of Henry IV in 1607. The feudalized domain of the last Carolingian official dominates half of the city, that is, the "bourg," built around his castle of the comital court near the ancient suburban cemetery of St-Amans; the bishop was sovereign in the "cité," formed around the Cathedral and the Episcopal Palace, certainly on the very site of the ancient Gallo-Roman city. Between the two halves, separated by walls, both well provided by their respective heads with communal privileges (the "bourg" in 1195, the "cité" in 1218), disputes were frequent and often even bloody. The "Reformation" greatly affected its southern part and the wars of religion caused irreparable damage there. The Revolution too did not spare its churches and modified not only its legal and administrative regime, but also its economic and social one.
The introduction of Christianity into the region is attributed to St. Amantius. Sidonius Apollinaris in a letter of 475 (VII, 6) came to consecrate a church there. Successor of Amantius was Quintian, who took part in the Councils of Agde (506) and of Orléans (511), of which he later became bishop (Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc., II, 36; III, 2, 12, 13; IV, 5, 35). Dalmatius was at the Councils of Clermont (535) and of Orléans, died in 580; his successors Theodore, d. in 584; Innocent, formerly count of Gevaudan; Verus, present at the Councils of Paris (614) and of Clichy (627); then Aredius and Feraldus, remembered in a document of Conques of 838; Elizachar, who founded the monastery of Vabres (11 Nov. 862); Aimar, present at the Council of Ponthion in 876. The region was devastated by the Saracens and the Normans in the 9th and 10th centuries; but in the Synod convened in 1030 by Bishop Arnald in the plain of St-Félix, below R., shine forth the Majesty of Notre-Dame of the cathedral, the golden statue of St. Faith of Conques, still preserved, the reliquaries of St. Amantius, of St. Marius of Vabres, of St. Saturninus of the monastery. Hugh of R., brother of the count, protects in a special way the Cistercians and their numerous foundations: Loc-Dieu (1134), Sylvanès (1136), Nonenque (1145), Beaulieu (1144), Bonneval (1161), Bonnecombe (1167). The Franciscan Vivian of Boyer (1247-74) gives proof of much authority, both against laymen, sometimes still suspected of Albigensianism, and toward the progressive encroachment of royal power. His successor, Raymond of Calmont, grants important synodal statutes and in 1277 lays the first stone of the new Gothic Cathedral. Bishop Bernard (1336-39).
cardinal from 1338, was in correspondence with Petrarch. The bishops of the 14th and 15th centuries continued the works of the Cathedral, perfectly respecting the continuity of the initial plan. Bl. Francis of Estaing (1501-29), belonging to one of the greatest families of the Rouergue, accomplished in his diocese a work that has left lasting marks, such as the reform of the Chapter, of the clergy, of the monasteries, the revision of the calendar, the institution of the feast of the Guardian Angels. He had built by A. Salvanh the famous bell tower finished in 1526, a admirable work of sturdiness and soaring, in which the pillars with their friezes connect harmoniously with garlands of ovoli and classical corbels, supporting at a height of 87 m. the statue of the Virgin accompanied by 4 censing angels. Throughout the Rouergue there remain works of art that testify to his devotion and his artistic taste, which ranges from the sentimentalism sometimes tender, sometimes exasperated of the end of the 15th century to the first accents of the new art known in Italy (C. Belmon, Le bienheureux François d'Estaing évêque de R., 1460-1529, Rodez 1924).
His successor, George of Armagnac, of the comital family, was bishop of R. from 1529 to '62 and of Vabres from 1536 to '47; then ambassador of Francis I to Venice and then to Rome, cardinal in 1544; he encouraged humanism even more and finished the Cathedral; the Gothic pillars of the western facade bear his coat of arms; a curious little building of Renaissance style with pediments and corbels, an early work of a pioneer, the canon architect G. Philandrier, commentator on Vitruvius. Unfortunately, however, at that time Calvinism spread in the southern part of the department. The subsequent bishops were three Corneillan, James (1562-82), Francis and Bernardino (1614-15), then H. de Préfixe, formerly tutor of Louis XIV, L. Abelly, G. Le Voyer de Palmy (1666-82) who founded hospitals and seminaries; then G. M. Champion de Cicé (1776-81) and card. G. C. E. Bourret (1871-96), personal friend of Leo XIII. As elsewhere, the bishops had to take the direction of the "civitas" during the turbulent period of the great invasions and give to their diocese the boundaries of the Roman province. With insignificant modifications on the part of Quercy (and the detachment of the canton of St-Antonin, united with Tarn-et-Garonne in 1808), the boundaries are the same as those of the department. But civil power long contested the capital with the ecclesiastical authority. The count of R., successor of the county enclosed between the royal possessions and their capitals of jurisdiction, Millau, for the high Marche, Villefranche, first seat of the seneschal, then presidial for the low Marche, occupied only the center of ancient Rouergue. After 1607 R. is merely an episcopal city and the bishop assumes the title of count.
From the most ancient age the ecclesiastical authority occupied a very strong position in Rouergue. If the too great expansion of the diocese justified its dismemberment under John XXII, who in 1317 detached the southern part of the Tarn to create the diocese of Vabres, R., even thus amputated, constituted a very extensive circumscription with 475 parishes and 66 annexes in 1771. The Concordat of 1801 united the two dioceses with that of Cahors, but in 1817 that of R. was recognized. Pope Pius IX by decree of 21 May 1875 re-established the ancient suppressed title of Vabres in favor of the bishops of R.
The interior of the Cathedral has the choir commissioned by Bishop F. d'Estaing; the chapel of the Pietà by Canon G. Roux; by Philandrier are the tribune and the chapel of the Agony; on the high altar is a Madonna of the 14th century. The church of St. Amantius is a Romanesque building, rebuilt in the 18th century, of which it preserves the plan and the ancient materials; a facade and a classical bell tower were added to it; but ending in an arrow, the work of the Capuchin Father Cassagnes. The interior has a series of "retablos" in gilded and polychrome wood of the 17th-18th centuries. In the church of the Sacred Heart, erected in 1898, an attempt was made to imitate the abbey church of Conques. A fine example of religious architecture is the chapel of the ancient College of the Jesuits, founded by Cardinal d'Armagnac in 1562 (L. Salter, Un témoignage de 1620 sur le Collège des Jésuites de R., in Bulletin de littérature ecclés., 39 [1938], pp. 204-27).
An essentially religious country, Rouergue abounds in abbeys, for the most part Cistercian, reorganized by Cardinal Bourret, such as Bonnecombe, Bonneval, Nonenque. Even before the Revolution the ancient Benedictine abbeys of Nant, Vabres, Conques and the female abbey of the monastery of St. Saturninus below R. had disappeared or been secularized. It has been replaced by a flowering of more recent convents and by several mother houses of new religious institutes such as the Sisters of the Holy Family of Villefranche (St. Emilia de Rodat, 1816), Dominican sisters of Notre-Dame du Rosaire de Monteils (1849), Ursulines of Malet (1806), sisters of St. Joseph of Clairvaux (1824), of St. Dominic of Gramont (1843), etc.
Numerous are the sanctuaries, especially dedicated to the B. Virgin, such as Notre-Dame of Ceignac, the most renowned, and others such as those of Fontcourrieu near Marcillac, Fraysse near Bournazel, Treize-Pierres near Villefranche, Lez near Mur-de-Barrez, Grandvabre and Gironde, Peyrusse and Romette, Estables and Lenne, Orient and La Salvage, Bergounhoux and St-Chély, "Notre-Dame-des-Buis" at St-Geniez, "de-la-Négrette" at Espalion, Notre-Dame de l'Espinasse at Millau, of Mercy at St-Affrique, Notre-Dame de Pitié at R. and at Réquista. The pilgrimage of St. Tarcissa at Rodelle is still very frequented, while that of St. Faith at Conques has become purely artistic. At R. were born the cardinal archbishops of Paris D. A. Affre, fallen on the barricades in 1848, and G. Verdier; the historian Amant-Alexis Monteil (1769-1850) author of the Histoire des Français des divers États états aux cinq derniers siècles (1808-2gg).
In the Chapel of the Baptistery is preserved a Christian sarcophagus coming from the church of the Magdalene; on the front is the Lord teaching between eight Apostles; at the sides, on one side, Christ teaching between two Apostles and on the other a building surmounted by the signum Christi between two saints, one of whom makes the gesture of acclamation (E. Le Blant, Sarcophages chrétiens de la Gaule, Paris 1886, pl. 22). The "Maurice Fenaille" Museum has gathered numerous vestiges of the notable artistic riches of ancient Rouergue, that escaped conscious and unconscious vandals, antiquarians and amateurs. Notable are the Romanesque Christ and the small columns of the altar of Deusdedit, whose panel is preserved in the Cathedral; the 15th-century Christ from Bonnecombe; the 16th-century Virgin Annunciate. The presentation of the ancient goldsmithing school is not proportionate to its importance. The collections of prehistoric and Gallo-Roman archaeology (sealed terracottas of the "Graufensenque") are very abundant. The Museum dedicated to the sculptor Denys Puech will contain all the ancient and modern plastic arts.