TOURNAI (DOORNIJK), DIOCESE OF. - Diocese and district capital city in the province of Hainaut in Belgium, situated on the banks of the river Scheldt.
It has an area of 3722 sq km with a population of 1,246,000 inhabitants; it has 555 parishes with 1149 diocesan priests and 280 regulars; it has 2 seminaries, 71 male religious communities and 450 female (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 428). It is a suffragan of Malines.
The first bishop of T. at the beginning of the 6th century was Eleutherius. Under St. Acharius, bishop of Noyon, in 626 or 627, T. was united to the latter see and only in 1146 by the blessed Eugenio III it was again separated. Pius IV, with the bull Super universas of 12 May 1559, dismembered from the diocese of T. the archdeaconry of Bruges in order to transform it into a new diocese.
It is believed that the first Cathedral dedicated to the B. Virgin was erected in the Merovingian era; around 1850 it was replaced by a Carolingian building, where in the crypt were deposited the relics of St. Nicasius, archbishop of Reims. Annexed to the Cathedral was the church of St. Stephen, destroyed for the first time in 881, while the Cathedral, set on fire between 1056-63, was reconsecrated in 1070. The present Romanesque one had its consecration in 1171; but the transept with the pointed vaults was begun in 1193-1203 in the time of Bishop Stephen. The Romanesque Cathedral of T. is linked to the finest examples of northern France and especially to those of St-Remy at Reims, of Moutier-en-Der of Vignory and to the Norman abbeys of Caen and Jumièges, but the transept of the cathedral of T. is the finest Romanesque transept that has come down to us. Its Romanesque choir was erected between 1146-1171, replaced between 1243-55 by the pointed choir under Bishop Walter of Marvis (1219-51). From a Gothic vestibule one passes to a portico containing sculptures of the 14th, 16th and 17th centuries. In the nave the capitals offer a rich variety of floral and geometric decoration, with birds, with human figures such as those of the falling man, of Chilperic, of Fredegund, etc. On the outside there are five square bell towers, of which the largest 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 chest of Notre-Dame at T., the work of the goldsmith Nicholas of Verdun, finished in 1205; it contains eight episodes from the life of the Madonna. The episcopal palace is from 1671.
Contemporary with the Cathedral are the following churches which still partly preserve their primitive 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 bombardment of the city in May 1940. St-Piat is from the middle of the 12th century. St-Jacques with a tower from the 12th century and the rest Gothic between 1209-57. St-Brice is from around 1175; around 1225; the choir and three naves of almost equal height were redone, destroyed in the bombardments of May 1940 (R. Maere, St. Brice te Doormijk en de vlaamsche Hallekerk, in Mededeelingen van de vlaamsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Klasse der Schoone Kunsten, 1940, no. 3). St-Nicolas is from 1231. La Madeleine from the 13th to the 14th century. The chapel of the Seminary in Gothic-Renaissance style is the work of the friar Hoeikmaker (1601-1604); that of the Athenaeum is from 1609-23. - See plate XXXIX.
Bibliography11 works
Enrico Josi