VERDUN
351
VERDUN
ily, 1817, and by the Royal Decree of 31 October,
(22. It was formed practically of the entire ancient
iocese of Verdun, portions of the ancient Dioceses of
rier, Chdlons, Toul, Metz, and Keims, and became
.ffragan of the Archdiocese of Besan^on. For the late
adition attributing the foundation of the Church of
?rdun to St. Sanctinu.s, disciple of St . Denis the Areo-
Lgite, after he had founded the Church of Meaux, see
!eaux. Certain local traditions state that Sts.
!aurus, Salvinus, and Arator were bishops of Verdun
ter St. Sanctinus, but the first bishop known to his-
ry is St. Polychronius (Pulchrone) who lived in the
th century and was a relative and disciple of St.
ipus de Troyes. Other bishops worthy of mention
e: St. Possessor (470-86); St. Firminus (486-502);
itonus (Vaune) (502-29); St. Desire (Desideratus)
29-54); St. Agericus (Airy) (554-91), friend of St.
regory of Tours and of Fortunatus; St. Paul (630-
!), formerly Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery
Tholey in the Diocese of Trier; and St. Madalvaeus .lauve) (753-76). The legend according to which >ter, successor of Madalva;us, received the Diocese
Verdun from Charlemagne as a reward for the ssion of the town of Paviaor Trevi.so to the P>anks, no longer accepted. Peter became Bishop of Ver- in in 781, named to that office by Adrian I at the quest of Charlemagne; shortly afterwards he was cused of conspiring against the emperor but was jared of the accusation at the Synod of Frankfort 94). Bishop Dado (880-923) caused the "Gesta liscoporum Virodunensium " to be begun by Ber- arius, a Benedictine of Saint-Vanne, afterwards ntinued down to 1250 by Lawrence, another monk
Saint-Vanne, and later by an anonymous writer. Verdun, which had been originally a Roman fitas, shared the destiny of Lorraine in the Middle jes and formed part of Lower Lorraine. The unts of Vc-rdun belonged to the family of Ardennes
which Godfrey of Bouillcm, the hero of the First rusade, was an illu.strious member. The Emperor
- to III in 997 conferred on Bishop Haymon of Ver-
u\ and his successors the titles of counts of their liscopal city and princes of the Holy Roman F^npire ith all the rights of sovereigns, especially that of lining for life a count subject to the commands of the shop {('(imir I'iriger). These "episcopal counts" also ,lled vi}tws {<!(!rncali) continued to be .selected by the shops of Verdun from the family of Ardennes, and ere were fre(|uent quarrels between the bislmps and e voues. Thus Godfrey of Bouillon, Vouv of Verdun, win conflict with Thierry the Great, Bishop of Ver- m from 1047 to 1088, before leaving for the Crusade, id renounced his rights to thecountship. Duringthe St half of the twelfth centiu'v, Henauld le Borgne, 3unt dc Bar and Tout' of V'erdun, governed the town
a tyrant and resisted the authority of the bishops r thirty-five years. The feast entitled "Com- emoration of the Miracles of the Virgin Mary" celebrated in the diocese on 20 October, in honour
the final victory of Bishop .Mbero (1131-56) over le BorgiM?" to whom the former ceded Clermontois id Vienne-le-Chateau. F'rom this time the voites of prdun were s\ippressed. The concessions obtained im the Emijcror Louis of Bavaria in 1227 by the peo- e of Verflun were the cause of a two-years' war be- ^een them and Bishop Kaoul de Tf)rote (1224-45). icques de Troyes. later i)op<' under the name of Urban f, was BLsho]) of Verdun from 12.52 to 1255. Among her bishoi)s arc: Li^bauld de Cus.ance (1379-1403), ho signed a treaty with King Charles VI of France ,■ which French dominion was established in Verdun; ardinal Ix)uis de Bar (1419-30); fiuillaume de illastre (1437-49), historian of the Golden Fleece oiinn d'Or); and Cardinal .Jean de Lf>rraine (1.523- 1). Nicolas Pseaulme (1.548-75) successfully with- ood the inro.ads of Protestantism in the diocese, t the Council of Trent he vigorously attacked the
system of commendatory abbots. It was during hia
episcopate that the Constable de Montmorency con-
quered in the name of Henry II, King of France, the
"Three Bishoprics" of Metz, Toul, and Verdun
(1552), though theoretically they remained terri-
tories of the empire until the Peace of Westphalia in
1648. Other incunilients of the see were Charles de
Lorraine, Cardinal ile Vaudcmont (15S.5-S7), and
Eric de Lorraine Vaudemont (1593-1610) to whom, at
the end of 1603, after many difticulties, Clement VIII
ga\'e full power to legalize the marriage of the Catho-
lic Henry, heir to the Duchy of Lorraine, to his
Calvinist cousin Catherine, sister of Henry IV.
Under the old regime the bishops of Verdun were
The CathedIial. Verdun
suffragans of Trier. Eugene III visited Verdun to
consecrate the new cathedral on 11 November, 1147.
This cathedral was built at the order of Bishop
Albero by the architect Garin, its cloister being a
masteri)iece of flamboyant Gothic, built from 1509 to
1517. The Abbey of Tholey was given in 634 to the
church of Verdun by the rich deacon Adalgisus, its
founder, out of esteem for his friend Bishop Paul.
Until the time of Charlemagne it w.as the chief
ecclesiastical school for the clergy of Verdun. The
Benedictine Abbey of Vasloge, later Beaulieu,
founded in 642 by St. Rouyn, numbered among its
abbots in the eleventh century Blessed Richard (d.
1046), Abbot of Saint-Vanne, who reformed it, and
St. Poppon, who died in 1048. The Benedictine
Abbey of Saint-Vanne de Verdun was founded in 952
t,o replace a community which had been esl.'i,blislied
in the same churchbySt. Vitoiius. Among the abbots
of Saint-Vanne may be mentioned the aforesaid
Blessed Richard, who dissuiidecl the ICmperor St.
Henry from becoming a monk of .Saint-Vanne when
he came to Verdun for that ])urpose about the year
1024; also .\bl)ot Conon, who playefl an important
part in the conflict of investitures, and who died
in 1178. I'\)r the important monastic reforms of
the beginning of the seventeenth century, which,
thanks to the prior Doni Didier dc? la Cour, emanated
from the Abbey of Saint-Vanne, see Benedictine
