TOURS, ARCHDIOCESE OF. – Archdiocese and chief town of the department of Indre-et-Loire in France. It covers an area of more than 6,116 sq km and has a population of 350,000, of whom 274,620 are Catholics, distributed among 295 parishes served by 321 diocesan priests and 20 regular clergy; it has two seminaries, six male religious communities and 110 female (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 428). Its suffragan sees are Angers, Laval, Le Mans and Nantes. The patrons of the archdiocese are St Martin and St Gatian.
The city, which in the Gallic age bore the name of Altonos and stood on the hill of St Symphorian, was moved by the Romans to the left bank of the Loire, where they called it *Caserodunum, oppidum Turonicum* because it was the capital of the Turoni; in 374 it became the capital of *Gallia Lugdunensis tertia*. It was occupied by the Visigoths in 473 and by the Franks of Clovis in 507; St Clotilde died there in 545. In the Middle Ages the city of Tours was separated from the borough that had grown up around the basilica of St Martin, known as Châteauneuf-lez-Tours; the former was governed by the bishops while the latter by the Chapter; later the counts exercised joint rule until Henry II, having become king of England, united the region to his kingdom, giving rise to the wars between France and England until the Treaty of 1242 between Henry III and Louis IX, by which it was reunited to France. The region suffered damage during the Wars of Religion and especially on 21 December 1870, in June 1940 and in August 1944.
The most celebrated bishop of Tours was St Martin (q.v.), who extended Christian propaganda from the city into the still pagan countryside. His disciple and successor was St Brice (q.v.), who, dying in 444, was buried in the *basilica parvula* or “cell” that he had prepared for St Martin (Gregory of Tours, *Hist. Franc.*, X, 31, II, 14). Bishop Perpetuus (461–91) replaced that basilica with a larger one, on whose walls he had painted scenes from the life of the saint and where he himself was buried (his epitaph in Le Blant, *Inscript. chrétien. de la Gaule*, I, Paris 1856, pp. 246 ff.; cf. L. Duchesne, *Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule*, II, 1910, pp. 302 ff.). Perpetuus, who began the cathedral of St Peter (now dedicated to St Gatian), was followed by a series of notable bishops known through the writings of St Gregory (q.v.), bishop of Tours. Thus Ormazius, who built the basilica in honour of SS Gervasius and Protasius; Ingurius, who completed the basilica of St Mary and attended the Councils of Orléans in 533 and 538; Eufronius, who presided at the Council of Tours in 567; he was succeeded by St Gregory, who rebuilt the cathedral, destroyed by fire in 561, and consecrated it in 590, having scenes from the life of St Martin painted on its walls. To Pelagius, St Gregory the Great wrote a letter recommending the monk Augustine, apostle of England (MGH, *Reg.*, VI, Ep. 50); Leodegar received St Columban in 608–609; Joseph was present at the funeral of Alcuin in 804. Among later bishops may be mentioned: Rudolf II (1108–17), during whose time Pope Paschal II visited Tours in 1107; Hildebert of Lavardin (1125–33); Stephen of Bourguignat (1323–25), who founded the College of Tours in Paris; P. Frétaud (1335–57); J. Gélu (1415–27); E. de Bourdeilles (1468–84), created cardinal in 1483; R. de Lenoncourt, later archbishop of Reims; Cardinal de Fénelon (1509–1514); A. Farnese (1553–54), later a cardinal; de Maille-de-Brezé (1554–97);
V. Le Bouthillier (1641–70); Cardinal Boisglin de Cizé (1802–1804); De Barral (1804–15); Morlot (1843–57), cardinal from 1853 and later archbishop of Paris; J
H. Guibert (1857–71), later cardinal archbishop of Paris; G.-R. Meignan (1884–96), cardinal in 1893.In the past the archdiocese had as many as eleven suffragans, namely: Angers, St-Brieuc, Le Mans, Quimper, Dol, St-Pol-de-Léon, St-Malo, Nantes, Rennes, Tréguier and Vannes.
In Tours there were provincial synods in the years 461, 567, 813, 858, 1054, 1060, 1096, 1163 (Hefele-Leclercq, II, pp. 899 ff.; III, pp. 184–93; 1143; IV, pp. 1108 ff.; 1202; V, pp. 446 ff.; 968–77).
The cathedral of St Gatian as it stands today is a Gothic building from the choir to the façade, crowned by two Renaissance towers. It is thus very different from the one founded by Bishop Perpetuus (461–91), which was ruined by the Normans. In 1054 Hildebrand (later Pope Gregory VII) consecrated the new cathedral, which had been begun in 997 by Bishop Arnulf. The eastern ambulatory of the cloister of St Martin was rebuilt between 1508 and 1519.
At the end of the 5th century a monastic community had formed around the church of St Martin, which in the 7th century was entrusted to monks. In 796 Alcuin (q.v.) took charge of it and died there in 804. Before him a school had already flourished there, and he himself in a capitulary praised the merits of a monk named Paul and of some teachers (PL 105, 800 ff.). To enrich the library and the school he procured books from York, including a dialogue grammar; he composed a collection of poems for the various places in the monastery, the first of which was *De schola et scholasticis* (ibid., 744–47); young pupils were sent there by Arno, archbishop of Salzburg.
The scriptorium developed until the mid-9th century, especially under the successors of Alcuin: Fredescus (804–34), Adalard (834–45) and Vivian, count and lay abbot of Tours (850–53) and of Marmoutier. Among the manuscripts produced in this scriptorium may be mentioned: the Lothair Gospels (Bibl. nat., Lat. 266); the Bible of Charles the Bald (483 folios in gold lettering and 8 illustrated pages, the last showing the monks presenting the Bible to Charles the Bald [c. 850]; it also depicts Arregarius “custos” and “presbyter” of Marmoutier); the Bern Virgil (no. 165) and the illustrated Boethius from Bamberg (H. J. IV, 12).
Marmoutier is the “monasterium maius” founded by St Martin in 372; in 850 it was entrusted to canons but was destroyed by the Normans in 853; Count Odo of Blois donated it in 982 to St Maiolus, abbot of Cluny, who installed his monks there. The Huguenots ruined it in 1562, but it was soon restored. At its height it had more than 124 priories dependent on II. Cardinal Richelieu, as commendatory abbot, entrusted it to the Congregation of St Maur in 1637. Sold in 1791, it was destroyed in 1818. The site was purchased in 1847 by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, who erected modern buildings there (Cottineau, II, col. 1762 ff.). Its church had been built between 1214 and 1312 to a design by the same architect as the cathedral, Stephen of Mortagne; it measured 112 m in length and was one of the most notable monuments of the region. A *Chartularium maioris monasterii Tironensis* is in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris (ms. lat. 5441–44); the Tours library holds capitularies (ms. 1386) and other documents (ms. 1381, 1387–88; 1397–99), while other charters are scattered in the libraries of Angers, Avignon, Blois, Carpentras, Chartres, Le Mans and Reims (cf. D. Raboy, *Histoire de Marmoutier et ses prieurés*, Paris 1910). From the scriptorium of Marmoutier comes the Sacramentary known as the Autun Sacramentary, with miniatures depicting Vivian (f. 173v), the major and minor orders and medallions with the Nativity, the Baptism of Christ, the Last Supper and a portrait of Raganaldo (844–45).
S. Gregory of T. enlarged the oratory of S. Stefano, depositing there relics of the Protomartyr which had hitherto been kept in the oratory of the episcopal palace (De gloria martyrum, 24). The oratory later became a parish church. The church of St-Julien belonged to an ancient abbey founded by Clovis; its name derives from S. Julian of Brioude, whose relics Gregory of T. gave to the monks. The abbey was sacked in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Normans and by the Count of Anjou (1043). The church was rebuilt between 1243 and 1259 in pure Gothic style, with three naves and a transept; the polygonal apses date from the 16th century. Of the abbey, only the chapter house from the end of the 16th century remains. The Venetian III convened Parliament on 22 March 1589. The church of Notre-Dame-la-Riche stands on an ancient Christian cemetery; it was also called Notre-Dame-la-Pauvre; rebuilt several times, including in the 15th century, it was severely damaged by the Huguenots in 1562 and immediately restored, and again between 1860 and 1866. It contains relics of S. Francis of Paola and five stained-glass windows from the 15th and 16th centuries. The ancient church known as Petit St-Martin, dating from the 14th century, now has a modern façade. The ancient church of St-Denis of the "hostellerie" de la Croix Blanche dates from the end of the 15th century.
The monastery of S. Venanzio is also called an abbey in paintings of 977 and 987; it was near the basilica of S. Martino. Its abbots were Licinius in 507 (Gregorio di T., Hist. Franc., X, 31, 9) and Gautiero in 552 (ibid., X, 31, 17), who later became bishops of T. The ancient convent of the Jacobins (1260) was destroyed during the war of 1939–45. The ancient convent of the Visitation (17th century and 1807) is now the Prefecture Palace. The chapel of the Minimi (1627) now serves as the chapel of the Lyceum. The ancient archiepiscopal palace (14th–16th centuries), rebuilt in the 17th–18th centuries, has housed the Museum of Fine Arts since 1910. The present sculpture gallery corresponds to the ancient hall (12th century) of the ecclesiastical tribunal, later transformed into a chapel. The most notable works of art come from the castles of Amboise, Chantelaupe, and Richelieu, and from the abbeys of Marmoutier, Beaumont, and Bourgueil. The *Christ in the Garden* and the *Resurrection* by Mantegna come from S. Zeno in Verona (the central panel with the Crucifixion is in the Louvre). The ancient hôtel de Philibert Babou de la Bourdaisière, dating from the time of Francis I, has housed the "Musée archéologique de Touraine" since 1918, with rich archaeological collections and architectural fragments from the abbeys of Beaumont, Noyers, the ancient St-Martin, the priory of S. Cosma, and the ancient churches of S. Clemente, Bueil, and Fleurey.
In June 1940, the Town Hall (1777–86), which since 1907 had housed the Library with its 2,030 manuscripts, 451 incunabula, and more than 165,000 volumes—formed in 1791 from the merger of ancient ecclesiastical libraries such as those of the Cathedral, S. Martino, and Marmoutier—was destroyed by bombing. The building (1828) housing the School of Fine Arts and the Museum of Natural History was also destroyed in 1940. Of the priory of St-Eloi, only the 12th-century chapel remains. The abbey of Beaumont-les-Tours, founded in 1002, was occupied by Benedictine monks until 1790; today it is a barracks; the church of St-Jean-de-Beaumont, rebuilt in 1451, is used as a workshop. Two kilometers from T., in the castle of Plessis-lès-Tours, was born on 23 April 1464 St. Joan of France, daughter of Louis XI, canonized on 28 May 1950. The priory of S. Cosma, three kilometers from T., was founded in 1092 by canons of S. Martino near an ancient chapel; its commendatory abbot from 1553 to 1585 was the poet P. de Ronsard. It was suppressed in 1741, sold during the Revolution, and in 1925 was reacquired and restored by the "Sauvegarde de l'art français" to serve as a center for the study of Romanesque and Renaissance art. The remains of the ancient chapel, the cloister, the refectory, and of the church—the southern wall of the 15th-century nave, part of the choir, and the Romanesque ambulatory—have been found. — See pl. XI.