Montpellier, Diocese of

MONTPELLIER, DIOCESE OF. - City and diocese, seat of the prefecture of the department of Hérault, on the river Lez, ancient capital of Languedoc.

The diocese has the same extent as the department of Hérault and a population of over 500,000 inhabitants, of whom 450,000 are Catholics; it is divided into 3 archdeaconries, comprising 5 archpriesthoods, which are divided into 283 parishes and 131 annexes. There are 350 diocesan priests and 112 regulars; a major and a minor seminary, 19 male religious communities and 80 female.

It is the Mons Pessulanus of the Middle Ages, at first a simple village which at the close of the 10th century was subject to the counts William; after Maguelonne was destroyed by Charles Martel, the inhabitants took refuge at M. It was excommunicated by Innocent II because it had rebelled against William VI. In 1141 it obtained a charter of franchise. Having passed to King Peter of Aragon in 1204, it enjoyed great autonomy and began a great commercial development. Its merchants formed a « societas et communitas mercatorum in Francia utentium » headed by a « capitaneus et consul »; through their commerce they penetrated into Spain and Morocco and reached as far as Syria. At M. a Synod was held in 1215, in the church of St. Mary, presided over by Card. Peter of Benevento, legate of Innocent III, to extirpate the Albigensian heresy (Hefele-Leclercq, V, II, pp. 1298-1302), and another on 25 Aug. 1224, presided over by Arnold, archbishop of Narbonne, on the commission of Honorius III to begin negotiations with Count Raymond of Toulouse (id., ibid., p. 1441). The hospitaller Order of St-Esprit, which in the 13th century spread through France, Italy, Germany, Poland, the Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavia, etc., had its first origin at M.: its definitive rule was promulgated in 1213 (P. Brune, L'Ordre hospitalier du St-Esprit, Paris 1892, pp. 200-201). In 1349 M. passed under the dependence of France; but then its decline began and continued until 27 March 1536, when Pope Paul III transferred there the seat of the diocese until then situated at Maguelonne.

The church there had been founded by Urban V in 1364, on the site of an ancient chapel of the Benedictine monastery of St-Germain. The central nave is of the 14th century; the choir, the work of Revoil, is of the 19th century. The forecourt presents 4 towers of the 15th century arranged in a square. The abbatial building of St-Germain was transformed in 1536 into the episcopal palace and now houses the Ecole de médecine. The first bishop of M. was Msgr. G. Pellicier (1536-68), then in the see of Maguelonne; the church of the monastery of Sts. Germain and Benedict, dependent on the monastery of St. Victor, was elevated to the dignity of cathedral. Then came Msgr. P. Fenouillet (1608-52), F. Bosquet (1657-76), Fournier (1806-34), Card. Rovérié de Cabrières (1911-21). The Huguenots destroyed churches and monuments of M., and a semblance of a republic was founded there which fell in 1622 after the siege by Louis XIII.

Veneration of the Blessed Virgin is traditional for M., ever since, in the 11th century, pilgrims traveling to St. James of Compostela stopped at a church where merchants and money-changers placed their tables, whence the name of Notre-Dame-des-Tables (erected into a parish in 1216 by Bishop Guillaume d'Antignac). The representatives of the Commune, at the beginning of their term of office, went to swear that they would strive for the maintenance of the Catholic faith; in the full crisis of the Albigensian heresy, on the communal coat of arms was placed the image of the Madonna with the Child and the inscription: « Virgo mater Natum ora, ut juvet nos omni hora ». Among the sanctuaries are remembered: Notre-Dame-de-l'Ermitage at St-Guillelm du Désert (14th century), Notre-Dame de Grâce at Gignac, Notre-Dame de Grau near Agde, Notre-Dame-de-Mougères at Mougères; Notre-Dame-de-Montaigu at Ceyras, Notre-Dame-de-Roubignac, Notre-Dame-du-Suc at Brissac, Notre-Dame-de-Trédos, Notre-Dame-des-Tables at M.

As early as the 11th century a school of medicine flourished at M., to which was added in 1160 that of law; in 1220 the University was founded there with a statute approved by Pope Honorius III, later reorganized by Nicholas IV in 1289. Today the University has all the Faculties. That of medicine is housed in the ancient episcopal palace, formerly the abbey of St-Germain. In the Museum of M. two Christian sarcophagi are preserved, one coming from Bagnoles (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pp. 111, 334-36, pl. 99, 5), the other is a forgery (id., Restauro di sculture cristiane antiche e antichità moderne, in Riv. di arch. crist., 4 [1927], p. 101, fig. 34). The Fabre Museum (1825), enriched by donations (Fabre, Valedeau, Bruyas), contains paintings of the French, Italian, Flemish and Spanish schools. The « Académie des sciences et lettres de M. » was instituted in 1706. With its reform in 1847 it began its Mémoires up to 1908; from 1909 a Bulletin mensuel, like the « Société archéologique », founded in 1833; notable centers of culture are also the « Société d'histoire naturelle » (1866) and the « Société languedocienne » (1875), all with rich libraries. The Archive is in the Tour des Pins (12th-14th centuries). In the City Library precious manuscripts are preserved, such as the Liber evangeliorum (ms. no. 3) containing the version of St. Jerome, which first belonged to the monastery of Gellona and is earlier than the 9th century. In the Library of the Ecole de médecine there are, among others, a Breviarium Alaricianum of the 8th century (ms. no. 84); ms. no. 141, partly a palimpsest, of the 8th-9th century; ms. no. 153 of the 9th century; Evangelia cum canonibus of the 9th century, formerly of the abbey of St-Loup at Troyes; an Antiphonary of the 10th-11th century; a Latin Psalter of the 8th century (no. 409), formerly at St-Germain d'Auxerre. For the liturgical manuscripts of M., v. H. Leclercq, s. v. in DACL, XI, II, coll. 2693-2700.

In 1877 Pius IX authorized by a brief the bishop of M. to retain the titles of the four suppressed dioceses of Agde, Béziers (v.), Lodève and St-Pons. But in the first place it is necessary to recall the primitive see of Maguelonne. The bishops of Maguelonne are known from 589, in which year Boethius was present at the Councils of Toledo and Narbonne; Genesius, at those of Toledo of 597 and 633; Vincent, also at Toledo in 685; Augemirus is known from a diploma of 819 of Louis the Pious; Stabile, who lived in 827; Abbo, who took part in the Councils of Troyes in 878 and at Port in 897 (L. Duchesne, Faites épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1907, pp. 318-19). The Muslims created the Saracen port at Maguelonne. Charles Martel retook it but destroyed it (737). The episcopal see was transferred to Substantion on the other side of the lagoon; the church recovered at Maguelonne in the time of Bishop Arnold I (1030-60); he rebuilt the Cathedral, which was dedicated in 1054, and built a fortified enclosure. Bishop Gualtier (1104-29) built the three apses and the tower of the Holy Sepulchre, as a contemporary chronicle attests; Bishop Raymond also completed the tower of St. Mary and the one called of the Cuisine (1129-58). The Cathedral, however, had to be demolished and largely rebuilt by Bishop John De Montlaur (1158-1190). Maguelonne was visited by the popes Urban II (1088-1099), Gelasius II (1118-19), Callixtus II (1119-24), Alexander III (1159-81); from as early as 1085 it had become a papal fief. The bishops of Maguelonne contemporary with Innocent III were Guillaume de Fleix and Guillaume d'Antignie. The fortification prior to 1173 included, besides the Cathedral and its annexes, the churches of St. Augustine and St. Pancras. Among the 54 bishops, mention should be made of the Bl. Louis Aleman (1418-23), later bishop of Arles. At the time of the transfer to M., the bishop was Msgr. G. Pellicier (1527-68).

The portal of the cathedral is surmounted by a block, formerly a Roman milestone, with decoration and an inscription by Bernard of Tréviers with the date 1178; in the tympanum, which is later, Christ in majesty with the symbols of the Evangelists; on the jambs the apostles Peter and Paul (12th century). The interior has a single nave. In the choir a semicircular apse opens, pentagonal on the outside. After the see was transferred to M., the cathedral of Maguelonne was damaged by Richelieu and then converted into a warehouse; only in 1875 was it restored and returned to worship by F. Fabrège.

Of Agde the first known bishop is Sophronius in 506 (L. Duchesne, Faites épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1907, pp. 317-18); in that year 34 bishops of Visigothic Gaul assembled at Agde. Suppressed by the French Revolution in 1790, its last bishop, Msgr. Ch. Fr. de Vermandois de Saint-Simon de Rouvroy de Sandricourt (1759-94), was killed under the guillotine in 1794. Lodève appears as an episcopal see as early as 421 (L. Duchesne, op. cit., pp. 313-14). The bishop St. Fulcran in 975 founded and dedicated the cathedral of St. Genesius. Among its bishops are remembered Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville (1450-53), the two brothers G. (1489-1516) and D. Briçonnet (1516-20). There flourished the abbey of St. Andrew, founded in the 5th century by the monk Siro Severo near the ancient cathedral of St. Andrew, and the abbey of St. Severus, whose church was originally (9th century) dedicated to St. Martin and united in 1158 by Adrian IV to the capitular mensa of St. Stephen.

The city of St-Pons-des-Thomières was founded in 936 by Count Raymond of Toulouse. The diocese was created by John XXII and suppressed at the end of the 18th century. The patron of the diocese was St. Pons (Pontius) of Cimiez.

Among the abbeys, besides the Benedictine abbey of Valmagne, founded in 1138 by the viscount of Béziers, Raymond of Frencavel (Cottineau, II, col. 3288), those of special importance are: the abbey of St-Guillemin-le-Désert in the valley of Gellona, founded in 804 by St. William duke of Aquitaine, who died in 812; the abbey church dedicated to the Redeemer and the Madonna, built with columns and Roman marbles from Nîmes. William was buried simply; in a sarcophagus were placed the bodies of his two sisters Albana and Bertrana. In 1138 William was canonized by Pope Innocent II, and then the bishop Hugh of Albi and Raymond abbot of St. William and Raymond abbot of Nantes placed the remains of St. William in a rich Christian sarcophagus of the 4th century carved on the four faces, which was disfigured in 1568 by the Huguenots and broken to pieces during the French Revolution; the sarcophagus was reassembled by G. Wilpert in 1933 (Sarcofago, III, pp. 26-32, fig. 243 and pl. 289). The abbey passed to the Congregation of the Maurists in 1635; it was suppressed at the end of the 18th century. Its library contained precious manuscripts. Among these a Sacramentary which H. M. Bannister assigned to between 772-95, that is, to the time of Adrian I (Journal of Theolog. Studies, 9 [1908], pp. 398-408; A. Wilmart, Le copiste du Sacramentaire de Gellone, in Revue bénédictine, 23 [1906], pp. 210-22; P. de Tuniet, Le Sacramentaire de Gellone, in Ephemerides Liturgicae, 48-52 [1934-38] and separate volume, Rome 1938; E. Bonnet, L'église abbatiale de St-Gullielmo-Le-Désert, Caen 1908). The abbey of the Most Holy Savior of Aniane was erected in 785 by Witiza called Benedict, who was its first abbot. The abbey church was consecrated in 796; it passed to the Congregation of the Maurists in 1635 (E. Baumes, Le cartulaire d'Aniane et de Gellone, in Revue historique du diocèse de M., 1912, pp. 69-80, 106-12; A. Wilmart, Un lectionnaire d'Aniane, in Revue Mabillon, 1923, pp. 40-553).

Enrico Josi