SENS, Archdiocese of. - City in the department of the Yonne in France. It has a population of 271,685 inhabitants, of whom 25,000 are Catholics. The present diocese of S. is divided into 5 archpriesthoods: S., Joigny, Auxerre, Tonnerre, Avallon (the latter two constituted approximately with portions of territory belonging to the ancient dioceses of Langres and Autun), 37 deaneries, 49 parishes with 442 succursals and 22 chaplaincies. The former Chapters of the ancient dioceses indicated above have all been suppressed and only the metropolitan one has remained, with ten titular canons. None of the abbeys erected under the old regime has remained; of the ancient convents only that of the Carmelites of S. has risen from the ruins; in compensation new institutions have arisen, among which the two founded by Fr. G. B. Nuard, namely the Congregation of the Fathers of St. Edme of Pontigny and the Benedictine abbey of La Pierre-qui-Vire; furthermore the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence of S. and the community of the Dominicans of the Eucharist. Non-diocesan orders direct some schools and several charitable works. Until 1903 the great diocesan Seminary was directed by the Lazarists, while now it is entrusted to secular diocesan priests.
I. HISTORY OF THE ARCHDIOCESE
In the absence of documents, Msgr. Duchesne held that the episcopal list provided solid evidence, since the fourth bishop it mentions, Severinus, is identified among the 34 bishops of Gaul who gave their adherence to the encyclical letter of the Council of Sardica. This precision allows one to think that Sens was endowed with an episcopal see before the end of the 3rd century. Moreover the list may, like many others, have remained incomplete; the bishop placed at its beginning is that Sabinian venerated for many centuries in Sens as a martyr. Senonia, as L. Duchesne revealed, was truly the heart of ancient France. Sens became around 385 the capital of the Fourth Lyonnaise, having under its dependence Chartres, Auxerre, Meaux, Paris, Orléans and Troyes. The civil circumscription therefore served as the natural framework for the ecclesiastical constitution of the province, when in the 5th century the metropolitan system was introduced into the religious organization of the Gauls and the see of Nevers, founded after the others, was placed under the jurisdiction of Sens. Nevertheless the importance of the metropolitan Church of Sens asserted itself only in the 8th century, when Vilcarius of Sens in 769 was at the head of the Frankish episcopal mission that was to take part in the Roman Council charged with judging the intruder Constantine II.
In the following century John VIII increased the prestige of the see of Sens. When Charles the Bald wished to reconstitute Charlemagne's Empire, he had obtained that the Pope favor the religious union of the Frankish and German Kingdoms, uniting them under the high authority of a prelate devoted to his cause; thus in 876 John VIII had conferred on Ansegisus, archbishop of Sens, precise functions that placed him in a position to exercise his authority over the bishops of the two countries. But this primacy, claimed by the successors of Ansegisus, was lost two centuries later when in 1079 Pope Gregory VII conferred on Gebuin, archbishop of Lyon, the primacy of Gaul. Nevertheless for a long time the archbishops of Sens continued to bear, on a purely honorific basis, the title of primate of the Gauls and of Germany. But in the 12th century the primacy of Sens came back into prominence, when in 1163-64 Pope Alexander III, then in conflict with Frederick Barbarossa, established his residence at Sens. The Church of Sens, however, continued to be the ecclesiastical metropolis of Paris, when in the 14th century this superiority was threatened, two Popes protected Sens with their authority: Clement VI, who in 1330 had been its titular, as archbishop Peter Roger, and Gregory XI who had been its archdeacon. Charles VIII too defended the old metropolis against the claims of Msgr. L. De Beaumont, bishop of Paris. In the 16th century the see of Sens was held by the most illustrious ecclesiastical personages of the Kingdom, thus remaining safe from the rivalry of Paris, which was elevated to a metropolis by Gregory XV in 1622, who assigned to it as suffragans the dioceses of Chartres, Meaux and Orléans.
In 1791 the Revolution overturned the ancient local religious organization, imposing a new departmental arrangement. But the Concordat of 1801 suppressed the diocesan circumscription of the Yonne, incorporating it into the diocese of Troyes. By a brief of Pope Pius VII of 4 Sept. 1821 the see of Sens was reconstituted with its present territory. The dioceses of Troyes, Nevers and Moulins became the suffragans of the restored metropolis; only the diocese of Auxerre and its territory were suppressed. The same Pope Pius VII by a brief of 3 June 1823 granted to the archbishop of Sens the right to add to his title that of bishop of Auxerre.
Illustrious personages of the archdiocese. - Mention is made of St. Lupus the thaumaturge, made popular by the Legenda aurea, d. in 623; archbishop G. Cornut, d. in 1241; Cardinal Duprat, d. in 1536, to whom the Concordat of 1516 is due; Cardinal L. De Bourbon, d. in 1557; Cardinal L. of Lorraine, d. in 1562; Cardinal de Pellevé, d. in 1592; Cardinal J. Du Perron, d. in 1618; Cardinal De La Fare, d. in 1828.
Renato Fourrey
II. ARCHAEOLOGY AND ART
The Cathedral dedicated to St. Stephen is a typical example of Gothic art; begun in 1130 by Archbishop Henry Sanglier, it was reworked in the 13th and 14th centuries, and completed between 1490 and 1520 with the transept, in the time of Archbishop Tristan de Salazar. The facade (12th cent.) presents in the central portal the scene of the wise and foolish virgins; in the tympanum episodes from the life of St. Stephen, whose statue stands on the central pillar; above the great window statues of Christ and two angels. The 70 small statues of angels and saints decorating the frame were decapitated on 7 Nov. 1793, as in the right portal were the 22 small statues of prophets and angels, the four bas-reliefs with the death, burial, Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin and the statue of Philip IV. The tower that rose above the portal collapsed in 1267; it was rebuilt in 1535; it contains 10 statues representing the principal archbishops of S. At the opposite corner the bell tower rises to a height of 78 m.; the left portal contains the bas-reliefs of Prodigality and Avarice, while in the tympanum are episodes from the life of St. John the Baptist. The portals of the transept are the work of M. Chambiges (1490-1513); the small statues each bear the name of a figure of the Old and New Testaments. The interior with three naves measures 113.50 m. by 24.40 in height; the central nave is 15.50 m. wide with alternating paired pillars and columns; of great value are the stained-glass windows that range from the 12th to the 16th cent.; they depict in the transept episodes from the life of Abraham and of Joseph, patron saints of the diocese, Paradise, legends of St. Stephen, of St. Nicholas, the tree of Jesse, the Last Judgment (16th cent.). In the choir, separated by an artistic gate donated by Cardinal De Luynes (1678), the windows represent scenes of the Passion, of the life of the B. Virgin and of the martyrdom of St. Stephen (13th cent.). In the chapel of the apse the windows represent the apostles St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John the Evangelist (13th cent.). From the 12th cent. are the windows in the ambulatory with the story of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the legend of St. Eustace, parables of the Prodigal Son and of the Samaritan.
The Treasury of the Cathedral preserves a precious series of silk fabrics, among which are remembered: fragments of a silk fabric with scenes relating to the story of Joseph, with declaratory inscriptions in Greek (E. Chartrave-M. Prou, Note sur un tissu byzantin à personnages et inscriptions du trésor de la cathédrale de S., in Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de France, 58 [1897], pp. 258-70); a silk cloth with ducks and griffins dated ca. the year 500 (H. Peirce-R. Tylor, L'art byzantin, I, Paris 1932, p. 103, pl. 181); a silk cloth with busts, earlier than the 6th cent. (ibid., pp. 102-103, pl. 180); a fragment of silk cloth with a buffalo head (ibid., pl. 162 b), and another fragment with a maenad, both from the 5th cent. (ibid., pl. 162 c); the Shroud called of St. Columba and of St. Lupus, with seven superimposed zones with four medallions in each, with confronted lions and around them dogs, foxes, trees (E. Chartraire, Les tissus anciens du Trésor de la cathédrale de S., in Revue de l'art chrétien, 61 [1911], pp. 372-76); the Shroud called of St. Potentiana removed in 1896 from relics (ibid., p. 378); the Shroud called of the Sts. Innocents, which would have contained relics brought by St. Ursicinus; according to E. Chartraire it would go back to Bishop Ansegisus (870-83) who transported the said relics from the church of St. Leo to the abbey of St-Pierre-le-Vif (ibid., pp. 376-378, n. 21 and fig. 21). Furthermore, a silk cloth with medallions, confronted horses and birds, a Persian work of the 9th cent. (L. Duthuit - F. Volbach, L'art byzantin, Paris [1932], p. 74, pl. 89 a); a damask silk fabric with griffins, called the shroud of St. Viardus, a Byzantine work of the 10th or 11th cent. (ibid., p. 77, pl. 97); a silk shroud called of St. Victor with a man gripping two lions by the throat, attributed to the 8th cent. (ibid., pp. 73-74, pls. 86-87); tapestry of the adoration of the Magi in silk and gold, a work of the second half of the 15th cent., donated by Cardinal Charles of Bourbon (1535-57); sacred vestments of Archbishop P. De Charny (13th cent.), of St. Thomas Becket who resided from 1166 to 1170 in the monastery of St. Columba; a Byzantine chasuble attributed to St. Ebbo archbishop of S. (d. 750); an altar vestment called «des Trois Couronnements» of the 15th cent., representing the B. Virgin crowned by the Most Holy Trinity, Bathsheba crowned by Solomon and Esther by Ahasuerus; an ivory casket called the «Sainte Chasse» with episodes from the life of Joseph and of David; a liturgical comb and an episcopal ring attributed to St. Lupus (7th cent.). There are also preserved a pyx in ivory of the 6th cent., with scenes of lion hunting (H. Peirce - R. Tylor, op. cit., I, Paris 1932, p. 94 and pl. 160 c); a diptych also in ivory with scenes of the triumph of Dionysus and of Selene, an Oriental work attributed to the middle of the 5th cent. (ibid., pp. 78-79, pl. 121).
In the chapel of the Madonna is the venerated statue of the B. Virgin donated in 1334.
The archiepiscopal Palace was erected between 1510-65. In the Synodal Palace or of the «Officialité» of the 13th cent., restored by Viollet-le-Duc, one admires a large tapestry with the story of Judith and Holofernes decorated with the coats of arms of Cardinal Wolsey (1515-29); the mausoleum of Cardinal Archbishop Duprat (1525-35); medieval and Renaissance statues and a series of Roman mosaics. The municipal Museum is rich in sculptures, stelae, Gallo-Roman inscriptions, collections of paintings and furniture; it also houses the municipal Library rich in over 30,000 vols. and 300 manuscripts, among which the Missal containing the feast of the Circumcision with a characteristic prose composition attributed to Peter de Corbeil, archbishop of S. from 1191 to 1221. In the binding is the ivory diptych with the triumph of Diana and of Bacchus. The church of St-Pierre-le-Rond is from the 13th cent.; the church of St-Savinien (11th-13th cent.) preserves the crypt from the beginning of the 12th cent. The abbey of St. Columba was established by Chlothar II in 620; the church was rebuilt in the 12th cent. and demolished in 1792. Of the ancient buildings there remains the refectory of the 13th cent. incorporated into the modern buildings occupied by the Sisters of the Holy Childhood. Two stone reliquaries were found near the altar of the crypt of St. Savinian (J. Perrin, Les châsses de pierre antiques des martyrs sénonais dans la crypte de St-Savinien, in Bull. de la Société archéol. de S., 1927-28, p. 734). A mosaic representing two confronted deer at a chalice was published by Martigny (Mosaïque chrétienne trouvée à S., in Gazette archéologique, 3 [1877], pp. 189-94). In 1909 in the place where the abbey church of St-Pierre-le-Vif arose a tomb was discovered containing a Merovingian gold fibula (P. Deschamps, Note sur une fibule d'or trouvée à S., in Bull. archéol. du Comité, 1913, pp. 17-20, pl. 2 and fig. 1). Since 1844 S. has had an « Société archéologique ».
Auxerre. - The ancient territory of the diocese of Auxerre corresponded to that of the two dioceses of Auxerre and Nevers before the Revolution. Around the end of the 5th century, following the political divisions between the Frankish Kingdom and that of Burgundy, the diocese of Nevers was constituted with the territory of the latter. The glory of Auxerre is St. Germanus, who died at Ravenna in 448. During the Middle Ages the history of the diocese was several times disturbed by feudal bishops all too often greedy to enlarge their domains. The region was plundered during the Hundred Years' War and then by the wars of religion. The diocese was reorganized only in the 17th century. Unfortunately, however, in the following century it was damaged by Jansenism, and the Revolution sought its suppression. Auxerre counted 217 parishes; it was divided into the two deaconries of Auxerre and Puisaye, in turn divided, the first into the archpresbyterates of Auxerre and Vargy, the second into those of Puisaye and St-Bris. It had a cathedral Chapter composed of 59 canons; the diocese counted 9 colleges, among which, in Auxerre itself, Notre Dame de la Cité. The church of Auxerre possessed at the end of the 6th century a calendar that passed into the compilation of the Jeronymian Martyrology. Two canons of Auxerre, Rainogala and Alagus, with the help of Henry, a monk of St-Germain, composed in the time of Bishop Wala, around 875, the Liber episcopalis of the diocese down to Christian, known under the title Gesta pontificum Antissiodor, (ed. Duru, in Bibliothèque historique de l'Yonne, 1) on the model of the Liber pontificalis of Rome; it was continued afterward. Ms. 123 of the Library of Auxerre of the 12th century contains the biographies first from St. Peregrinus down to Hugh, abbot of Pontigny (d. 1151), then down to Erard of Lésigne (d. 1278). The first bishop, St. Peregrinus, is indicated as a martyr in the Jeronymian Martyrology on May 16; his Passio seems inspired by that of Sts. Andochius and Thyrsus of the diocese of Autun of the first half of the 6th century; his successor Marcellianus is also in the Jeronymian on May 12; likewise on May 6 Valerianus, attested in 346; Helladius on May 8 and Amator (d. 418) on May 1; concerning the latter, Bishop Annacharius had his life written by the priest Stephen, of African origin (Acta SS. Maii, I, p. 53). There follows St. Germanus, who is commemorated in the Jeronymian Sacramentary on July 31; in 1429 he was sent to Brittany by Pope Celestine to combat the Pelagians. His life was written by Constantius, priest of Lyon, a friend of Sidonius Apollinaris, at the suggestion of Bishop Patient (BHL, I, p. 515). There follows Helladius (in the Jeronymian on Sept. 28), Fraternus (in the Jeronymian on Sept. 29), Censurius (in the Jeronymian on June 10; Sidonius Apollinaris wrote to him around 475: Ep., VI, 10), Ursus (in the Jeronymian on July 29), Theodosius (in the Jeronymian on July 17) who was present in 511 at the Council of Orléans, Gregory (in the Jeronymian on Dec. 19); Ottatus (in the Jeronymian on Aug. 31 and on May 2, where his translation is indicated), then Droctoaldus, Eleutherius (in the Jeronymian on Aug. 26) who was at the Councils of Orléans of the years 533, 538, 541 and 549; Romanus (in the Jeronymian on Oct. 6); Heterius (in the Jeronymian on July 27). Then Annacharius, whose ordination the Jeronymian indicates on July 31, was at the Councils of Paris in 573; in 581 and 585 at those of Mâcon; Pope Pelagius II wrote to him in 580 and in 586 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1048, 1057); he assembled a diocesan Synod and died in 605; his biography was composed in the 9th century (Acta SS. Julii, VII, p. 97). His successor Desiderius was at the Council of Paris of 614; Palladius was in 627 at the Council of Clichy and in 650 at that of Chalon-sur-Saône; Vigilius was murdered around 684; Scopilius donated precious vessels to the Cathedral (684-92); Tetricus (from 692 to about 767, the year in which he was murdered); then Floccoldus, Savaricus, Ainmarus, Quintilianus, Cillianus, Clement, Aidolfus, Maurinus, Aaron who accompanied Charlemagne to Rome in 800; Angelelmus, Eribaldus, Abbo, Christian, Wala in 872 who was at the Council of Ponthion in 876; Wibaldus, Erifridus in 909; then St. Geranus (909-14); St. Betto (933-61); John (997-98); Humbaldus (1095-1114); Hugh of Montaigu (1116-36), friend of St. Bernard; Hugh of Mâcon (1137-51), abbot of Pontigny; Alan (1152-67), author of the life of St. Bernard; William of Tracy (1167-81); Hugh of Noyers (1183-1206); William of Seignelay (1207-20), then archbishop of Paris; Bernard De Sully (1234-44); Guy De Mello (1247-70); Peter De Mornay (1296-1306), who was chancellor of France; Peter De Cros (1349-51), cardinal in 1350; Philip De Lenoncourt (1560-62), then cardinal; Card. Philibert Babon de la Bourdaisière (1562-70); J. Amyot (1571-93), learned Hellenist; Charles De Caylus (1704-54); the last bishop (1761) was Msgr. J. B. Campion De Cicé; in 1802 the diocese was incorporated into that of Troyes and in 1822 into that of Sens. Pope Pius VII, in order to preserve the memory of the Church of Auxerre, suppressed by the Concordat with a brief of June 3, 1823, decided that in the future the archbishop of Sens should bear the title of bishop of Auxerre.
The ancient cathedral of St. Stephen is built upon earlier constructions, of which the primitive one is attributed to St. Amator; the present Gothic one was begun in 1215 by Bishop William of Seignelay, continued by Msgr. Henry De Villeneuve and finished between 1520-45; although in the façade the south tower remained unfinished, while the north one rises to 65 m., though damaged during the wars of religion. In the central portal is the Redeemer among the angels, the Madonna and St. John the Evangelist; the Last Judgment; on the jambs the wise and the foolish virgins; in the medallions the story of Joseph and the parable of the Prodigal Son. In the portal, scenes relating to St. John the Baptist, to the creation and to the flood; on the right, the story of David and Bathsheba and statuettes of the liberal arts; further to the right a high relief with the Judgment of Solomon. The interior (98.50 x 39 m.) has three naves with side chapels, which preserve remains of frescoes and an epigraph of 1573 commemorating the restoration carried out by Bishop J. Amyot after the devastations of the Huguenots in 1567. The choir and the ambulatory are in the ogival style (1215-45), with superb stained-glass windows with medallions of the 13th century, rich in 353 subjects taken from Holy Scripture and from hagiography (R. Fourrey, Les verrières historiées de la Cathédrale d'Auxerre, Auxerre 1931). In the sacristy, paintings with the stoning of St. Stephen (1543).
The basilica of St-Germain was built in the first half of the 6th century by Queen Clotilde to receive there the body of St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre; the lower crypts were completed in 859 when, in the presence of Charles the Bald, the remains of St. Germanus were deposited there.
It was dedicated by Bishop Christian on May 20, 865, together with the annexed oratory of St. John the Baptist, which occupied the site of an ancient baptistery whose altar was later covered with silver by Bishop Gualdric (918-33), who was buried there nearby (Gesta Pontificum Autissiodor., 44). The nave was destroyed in 1811; only the 12th-century bell tower remained. Beneath the choir is the 11th-century crypt, a remnant of the Romanesque cathedral from the time of Hugh of Chalon; it has three naves with an ambulatory; in the vault of the apse chapel is an 11th-century fresco depicting Christ on a white horse, surrounded by four angels also on white horses; another fresco shows Christ in majesty surrounded by the Evangelists, likewise from the 11th century. The Treasury is rich in ivory statuettes (14th-17th centuries), Limoges enamel reliquaries, illuminated manuscripts, diptychs of the 14th-17th centuries, etc. To the left of the Cathedral is the chapel of Sts. Clement and Michael from the 12th century, used as a chapel of patronage. The church of St. Eusebius was part of an abbey founded ca. 630 by St. Palladius; it is a three-nave church of the 12th century, with a choir of 1530 imitating that of the Cathedral, with chapels adorned with stained glass of 1616. In the Treasury is preserved the so-called "Suaire de st Germain," a Byzantine fabric with which Charles the Bald wrapped the body of St. Germanus in the translation that took place in 841. The church of St. Peregrine, rebuilt in the 16th century, is used today for Protestant worship; the explorations carried out there between 1927-28 by R. Louis led to the identification in the subsoil of the structures of the primitive cathedral of Auxerre. The church of St. Peter, also called St-Père-en-Vallée (1536-72), has its portals carved in 1646 with a great square bell tower 45 m. high (1536-54) that reproduces that of the Cathedral; its artistic stained glass was ruined by bombardments; in a chapel is a wooden triptych with the Nativity. The Prefecture occupies the ancient episcopal palace: in it one admires a Romanesque gallery with 18 arches resting on monolithic columns and paired colonnettes, built by Hugh of Montaigu between 1115-36, restored in 1948. The small Gothic building in the center was erected in 1257 by Bishop Guy de Mello and contains the ancient synodal hall. On the site where the castle of the counts of Nevers stood, in a palace of 1622 are located the Library and the Museum. The Library is rich in more than 60,000 volumes, 200 manuscripts and incunabula. In the Museum are archaeological, numismatic, painting and sculpture collections, among which is a wooden retable of the 16th century from the church of Vermenton with a high relief representing the Dormition and the Coronation of the Madonna. There is also the Eckmühl Museum dedicated to the Napoleonic period. More than 4 km. from Auxerre is St-Bris-le-Vineux with a church dedicated to Sts. Prix (whence the present name) and Cot from the 13th century, restored in 1926; there the tomb of St. Cot is venerated; in the choir is a fresco of the Tree of Jesse (ca. 1500). The ancient Benedictine abbey of St. Michael at Tonnerre was founded ca. 800 and restored ca. 980 by Count Milo of Tonnerre; it received a privilege from Pope Alexander III; Cardinal Alan, legate of Pope Callixtus III, counted it among the twelve most distinguished abbeys of Gaul; in the church were venerated the relics of St. Theodoric, bishop of Orléans, in the first half of the 11th century; it passed to the Congregation of St. Maur in 1667; the ruins of the abbey are to the southeast of the present town (Cottineau, II, col. 3170). The Cistercian abbey of St. Edmund of Pontigny, founded by Theobald IV the Great, count of Champagne, ca. 1114 (its first abbot was Hugh, count of Mâcon, companion of St. Bernard), was greatly benefited by King Louis VII. Three archbishops of Canterbury took refuge there: St. Thomas Becket (ca. 1164), Stephen Langton and St. Edmund, who was buried there in 1242. Remains of the ancient abbey survive; the 12th-century church measures 108 x 22 m. (50 at the transept), has three naves, preceded by a narthex. The choir is surrounded by 8 columns and by a portico. Behind the altar is a large 18th-century reliquary with the remains of St. Edmund (Cottineau, II, coll. 2331-32). It is a pilgrimage destination on Nov. 16 and on Whit Monday. The Revolution damaged the monastic buildings; in 1843 six priests founded in the remains of the abbey the "Société des Pères de St Edme," but they were driven out in 1901 by the law of suppression; the buildings were sold, but in 1947 the Fathers of St Edme returned from America, where they had emigrated, opening there a Franco-American College. - See pl. XIX.
Bibliography9 works
Enrico Josi