TULLE, DIOCESI DI

Tulle, Diocese of. – Diocese and chief city of the department of the Corrèze, formerly of Lower Limousin in France.

It has an area of 5,887 sq. km. with a population of 254,000, of whom 245,000 are Catholics, distributed in 293 parishes, grouped into 3 archpriestships. It is served by 228 diocesan priests and 16 regulars; it has a major and minor seminary, 6 male religious communities and 55 female (Ann. Pont. 1933, pp. 436).

The name seems to derive from an ancient local deity, Tutela. The diocese was created by Pope John XXII on 15 Aug. 1317. The English occupied it in 1346 and 1369. A terrible fire devastated the city on 24 May 1524; it also suffered during the religious wars. The diocese is a suffragan of Bourges and its patron is St Martin of Tours. On the site there arose an abbey founded, according to some, by St Martin, according to others by St Calmin, an exile from Auvergne; the diocese arose from a division of that of Limoges, and its first bishop was the abbot Arnauld of St-Astier; but the Chapter was not secularized until 1517. Among its successors are remembered: Hugh Roger, called the cardinal of T. (1342-43); J. Fabri (1370-1371), later a cardinal; J. Mascaron (1671-79), who died as bishop of Agen in 1703; Ch. Duplessis d’Argentré (1723-1740); J. B. Berteaud (1842-78).

The cathedral is the ancient abbatial church of St Martin from the 12th century. An arched portico leads to the portal of Limousin type; the bell tower rises to 75 m. and ends in a spire of the 14th century; on its northern face, in the tympanum of the windows, is a seated Madonna between two angels, and in two niches are St Martin and an abbot. The interior is divided into three naves by piers formed of bundles of four columns; the apse no longer exists. The venerated wooden statue, painted and gilded, of St John the Baptist was carried in procession on the evening of 24 June by virtue of a vow made in 1348 during the plague; it was called the “procession of the moonlight,” because in 1348 on the evening of 24 June there was a full moon. To the right of the cathedral are the 13th-century cloister and the chapter house, which preserves 14th-century frescoes with the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem and the Last Supper. In the cloister part of the archaeological museum has been arranged; noteworthy are the statue of Notre-Dame-du-Bois-des-Moines and architectural fragments of the cathedral. Attached to the cathedral is the artistic house “de Loyac” or “maison de l’abbé” of the 16th century. The 17th-century monastery of the Visitation, with its octagonal chapel, has been converted into a hospice. The ancient church of St Peter, formerly of the Carmelites, has an octagonal form surrounded by chapels from the late 17th century.

Saints born in the territory of the diocese are St Martin of Brive (5th century), disciple of St Martin of Tours; St Sacerdos, born at Argentré, later bishop of Limoges (6th century); St Liberalis, born at Brive and died there in 940, who was bishop of Embrun; St Stephen of Aubazine, who founded there at the end of the 11th century a Cistercian monastery (Cottineau, I, col. 185); St Berthold of Mabeafyde, general of the Carmelites (12th century); the missionary Dumolin Borie (1808-1838), martyr in Tonkin. In the diocese, and precisely at Maumont, was born Pierre Roger, VI (v.); and at Château-des-Monts was born Stephen Aubert, VI (v.).

The principal shrines venerated in the diocese are Notre-Dame-de-Belpeuch at Camps, Notre-Dame-de-Chastre at Bar, Notre-Dame-du-Pont-du-Salut (pilgrimage on 8 Sept.); Notre-Dame-du-Roc at Servières; Notre-Dame-de-la-Buissière-Lestards; Notre-Dame-de-la-Chabanne at Urssel with a wooden statue of the Madonna; Notre-Dame-de-Penacor at Neuvi, an ancient church (12th-15th centuries).

In honour of St Anthony of Padua, who stayed at Brive in 1226, founding there a Franciscan convent, a pilgrimage is made to the Grotte di Brive; his statue, mutilated by the Huguenots, has been restored. St Rodolph of Turenne (845-66), archbishop of Bourges, founded about the year 840 the Benedictine abbey of Beaulieu-sur-Mémoire dedicated to the holy apostles Peter and Paul and to St Felicity.

TULLE – TUMOUR