SOISSONS, DIOCESE OF. - A city and diocese in the Aisne department of France. Soissons is the ancient Noviodunum, the center of the Gallic tribe of the Suessiones, later Augusta Suessionum of the Romans in Second Belgica. The diocese covers the same area as the civil department, i.e., a surface area of 7,367 sq. km. and has a population of 455,000, of whom 423,000 are Catholics. It is divided into 2 archdeaconries, 5 archpriestships, and 37 deaneries; it has 578 parishes, served by 481 diocesan priests and 26 regular clergy; it has a major and minor seminary, 2 male religious communities, and 59 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 405). It is a suffragan of Reims.
The archdeaconry of Soissons includes the archpriestships of Soissons, Château-Thierry, and Vervins; that of Laon (q.v.) includes those of Laon and Saint-Quentin. Of the 834 communes, 21 lack churches. The martyrs of Soissons were SS. Crispin and Crispinian, commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on October 25; the basilica erected in their honor is mentioned by Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francorum, V, 34; IX, 9), but their *Passio* is entirely legendary (BHL, 1990-93); the same must be said of the *Passio* of the martyrs Valerius and Rufinus (ibid., 7373-75), listed in the same Martyrology on June 14, in the territory of the city of Soissons. Flodoard, in his *Historia Remensis* (I, 3), wrote that Soissons shared its first two bishops, Sixtus and Sinicius, with Reims; at the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 4th century, Divitianus was bishop only of Soissons; he was followed by Rufinus, Mercurius, and Principius, to whom Sidonius Apollinaris wrote around 475; then Bandarius; Drusius, known from several documents between 660-67. At the time of Pope Zachary, on March 3, 744, the Council of Soissons took place (Hefele-Leclercq, III, pp. 854-61; bibliography, pp. 1248 ff.; IV, pp. 192-96). Rothad attended the Council of Noyon in 814, where the boundaries between his diocese and that of Noyon were fixed; he attended the Council of Paris in 829 and is mentioned in the account of the translation of the relics of St. Sebastian in 826. Rothad II, expelled in 861, appealed to Pope Nicholas I, who reinstated him in 865. Then Hugh of Champfleury (1159-75), who was chancellor to Louis VII; Guy of Château-Porcien (1245-50), who accompanied St. Louis to Palestine and was killed there; Languet de Gergy (1715-30), author of a *Life of St. Mary Alacoque*. The bishop of Soissons, as dean of the suffragans of Reims, had the privilege, during the period of a vacancy at Reims, of celebrating the ceremonies of the coronation of the kings of France. In the first half of the 12th century, a feudal county was established, which subsequently belonged to various noble families: Bar, Nesle, Coucy, Luxembourg, Saint-Pol, Bourbon-Vendôme and Bourbon-Condé, and finally to the Savoy-Carignano.
The diocese was re-established by the Concordat of 1802 as a suffragan of Paris, but since 1821 it has been a suffragan of Reims. By the Concordat of 1817, an attempt was made to re-establish the see of Laon; but Leo XII on June 13, 1828, authorized the bishop of Soissons to add the title of Bishop of Laon. Leo XIII on June 11, 1901, also united the title of Saint-Quentin, the residential see of the bishop of Noyon.
The Cathedral, dedicated to the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, dates from the 13th century; but the façade was modified in the 18th century. It is flanked by two towers, the northern one left unfinished, the southern one, 66 m. high, was damaged during the war of 1914-18. The interior measures 100 m. x 27 m. and reaches 30 m. in height; it was ruined by bombardments, restored, and reopened for worship in 1931. The central nave is divided by cylindrical pillars. The transept was begun in 1177; it recalls in the arrangement of the choir and apse that of the cathedral of Noyon, but has in addition an ambulatory, as in the cathedral of Tournai; the stained glass windows are from the 12th century; the high altar has a sculptural group of the Annunciation; on the walls a tapestry donated around 1480 by Bishop J. Millet contains episodes from the life of SS. Gervasius and Protasius; there is also an *Adoration of the Magi* by Rubens and the funerary monument of Bishop Mons. Fr. de Simony (d. 1849). Of the ancient church of St. Peter-au-Parvis (12th century), only the façade and two bays of the central nave with the two side aisles remain; and only a few walls remain of the ancient church of the abbey of Notre-Dame, destroyed by the Revolution.
Where the church erected over the tomb of the martyrs Crispin and Crispinian and the related abbey once stood is now a day nursery run by the Sisters of Charity. The church of St. Léger, damaged by the Calvinists in 1567, preserves the 13th-century transept, while the façade and bell tower are from the 17th century; the building, together with the adjacent structure, houses the Museum and Library, rich in over 5,500 volumes and 200 manuscripts, including the illuminated Missal known as the Missal of St. Medard (12th century), the Bible of St-Yved-des-Braine (12th century), the cartulary and chronicle of the abbey of St-Jean-des-Vignes, founded in 1077 and destroyed by military auto-da-fé. The façade was erected between the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th, with three artistic portals, a central gallery, and two side towers, reinforced with buttresses. Of the cloister, two large galleries from the 14th century remain.
The abbey of St. Medard, later also dedicated to St. Sebastian, was founded at Soissons by Clotaire I in 557 to house the relics of the saint. Abbot Ilduin (822-30) obtained from Pope Eugenius II in 826 the relics of St. Sebastian and St. Gregory the Great; he rebuilt the church, which was consecrated on August 27, 841; but, ruined, it was rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1131 by Pope Innocent II, who instituted the "Pardon of St. Medard" for visitors. Louis the Pious was imprisoned there in 833; it was sacked by Calvinists in 1564; it passed to the Congregation of St. Maur in 1637. Among its abbots are remembered: St. Arnold, who in 1081 was bishop of Soissons; Cardinal de Bernis, who was its commendatory abbot in 1756. Over the tomb of St. Medard, bishop of Noyon and Tournai (d. ca. 557), a church with an attached abbey was erected. The crypt, dating from the 9th century, is surrounded by seven chapels; one of them contains the tombs of King Clotaire (561) and Sigebert (575). The remains of the building are now used as an asylum for the deaf and mute.
The Benedictine abbey of Notre-Dame of Soissons was founded in 660 by Ebroin and his wife Leutrada, during the episcopate of Bishop Drausinus (F. Blanchard, *Rech. sur l'abbaye de N.-D. de S. et ses dépendances*, in *Bull. de la Soc. archéol. de S.*, 14 [1907], pp. 75-96).
Premontré. - It was the site of the abbey founded by St. Norbert (q.v.) in 1120, of Notre-Dame and St. John the Baptist, center of the Order of Premonstratensian Canons Regular; situated in the middle of the forest of St-Gobain; it was devastated by the Huguenots, restored in the 18th century, expropriated by the Revolution, and is now a lunatic asylum (q.V. PREMONSTRATENSIANS).
Saint-Quentin. - It was the *civitas Veromandorum*, sacked in the 5th century. The city sustained two sieges, in 1557 and 1870. The abbey was erected around 650 by St. Eligius, over the tomb of the martyr St. Quentin; its first abbot was Ebertram, a monk of Luxeuil. It became a collegiate church around 900. The church was rebuilt around 1114, but of the Romanesque building with a double transept little remains; it measured 96 m. in length and reached 40 m. in height; it was illuminated by 110 windows over 3 m. high. The relics of St. Quentin are enclosed in a sarcophagus carved from a Roman column.