TOURNAI (DOORNIJK), DIOCESE OF. — Diocese and district capital city in the province of Hainaut in Belgium, situated on the banks of the Scheldt River.
It has an area of 3,722 sq. km. with a population of 1,246,000 inhabitants; it comprises 555 parishes with 1,149 diocesan priests and 280 regular clergy; it has 2 seminaries, 71 male religious communities and 450 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 428). It is a suffragan of Mechelen.
The first bishop of T. at the beginning of the 6th century was Eleutherius. Under St. Acarius, bishop of Noyon, in 626 or 627, T. was united to the latter see and was only separated again in 1146 by Bl. Eugene III. Pius IV, with the bull *Super universas* of 12 May 1559, dismembered the diocese of T. to create the new diocese of Bruges.
It is believed that the first cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Virgin was built in the Merovingian period; around 850 it was replaced by a Carolingian building, where the relics of St. Nicasius, archbishop of Reims, were deposited in the crypt. Attached to the cathedral was the church of St. Stephen, destroyed for the first time in 881, while the cathedral, which was burnt between 1056-63, was reconsecrated in 1070. The present Romanesque structure was consecrated in 1171; but the transept with its ribbed vaults was begun in 1193-1203 during the episcopate of Bishop Stephen. The Romanesque cathedral of T. is linked to the finest examples of northern France, especially those of St-Remy in Reims, Moutier-en-Der, Vignory and the abbeys of Caen and Jumièges, but the transept of the cathedral of T. is the finest Romanesque transept to have come down to us. Its Romanesque choir was built between 1146-1171, and replaced between 1243-55 by the Gothic choir under Bishop Walter of Marvis (1219-51). From a Gothic vestibule one passes to a portico containing sculptures from the 14th, 16th and 17th centuries. In the nave, the capitals offer an extremely rich variety of floral, geometric decoration, with birds and human figures such as that of the falling man, of Childeric, Fredegonde, etc. On the exterior there are five square bell towers, the largest of which is the central one, but all are contemporary with the transept and the Romanesque choir. The episcopal chapel was rebuilt in 1198 by Bishop Stephen in pure Gothic style. The reliquary casket of Notre-Dame in T., the work of the goldsmith Nicholas of Verdun, completed in 1205, contains eight episodes from the life of the Madonna. The episcopal palace dates from 1671.
Contemporary with the cathedral are the following churches, which still partly preserve their original Romanesque architecture: St. Quentin, with a single Romanesque nave like the choir, while the ambulatory is from the 15th century and the portico from the 14th; it suffered greatly from the bombing of the city in May 1940. St. Piat dates from the mid-
His works are highly regarded for their doctrinal solidity and clarity of exposition. Principal work: *Praelectiones theologicae* (16 vols., Paris 1725-30). U. Robinet made a compendium of it for school use (2 vols., ibid. 1731); P. Collet, adding the moral part, published it in 10 vols. H. T. *Cursus theologicus scholastico-dogmaticus et moralis* (Venice 1731-46).