Nantes (Nannetes)
Diocese of Nantes (Nanceiensis).
This diocese, which comprises the entire department of Loire Inférieure,
was re-established by the Concordat of 1802, and is suffragan of Tours.
According to late traditions, St. Clarus, first Bishop of Nantes, was a
disciple of St. Peter. De la Borderie, however, has shown that the
ritual of the Church of Nantes, drawn up by precentor Helius in 1263,
ignores the apostolic mission of St. Clarus; that St. Peter's nail in the
cathedral of Nantes was not brought thither by St. Clarus, but at a time
subsequent to the invasions of the Northmen in the tenth century; that
St. Flix of Nantes, writing with six other bishops in 567 to St.
Radegond, attribute to St. Martin the chief rôle in the conversion of the
Nantais to Christianity; that the traditions concerning the mission of
St. Clarus are later than 1400. The earliest list of the bishops of
Nantes (made, according to Duchesne, at the beginning of the tenth
century) does not favour the thesis of a bishop of Nantes prior to
Constantine. The author of the Passion of the Nantes martyrs, Sts.
Donatian and Rogatian, places their death in the reign of Constantius
Chlorus, and seems to believe that Rogatian could not be haptized,
because the bishop was absent. Duchesne believes that the two saints
suffered at an earlier date, and disputes the inference of the ancient
writer concerning the absence of the bishop. He believes that the first
bishop of Nantes, whose date is certain, is Desiderius (453),
correspondent of Sulpicius Severus and St. Paulinus of Nola. Several
bishops, it is true, occupied the see before him, among others St. Clarus
and St. Similianus, but their dates are uncertain. Mgr Duchesne
considers as legendary the St. Æmilianus supposed to have been Bishop of
Nantes in Charlemagnes reign and to have fought the Saracens in Burgundy.
Among the noteworthy bishops are: St. Felix (550-83), whose municipal
improvements at Nantes were praised in the poems of Fortunatus, and who
often mediated between the people of Brittany and the Frankish kings; St.
Pacharius (end of seventh century); St. Gohard (Gohardus), martyred by
the Northmen in 843, with the monks of the monastery of Aindre; Actardus
(843-71), during whose time the Breton prince Nomenoé, in his conflict
with the metropolitan see of
Tours,
created a see at Guérande, in
favour of an ecclesiastic of Vannes, in the heart of the Diocse of
Nantes; the preacher Cospeau (1621-36). The diocese venerates: the monk
St. Hervé (sixth century); the hermits Sts. Friard and Secondel of Besné
(sixth century); St. Victor, hermit at Cambon (sixth or seventh century);
the English hermit Vital, or St. Viaud (seventh or eighth century); the
Greek St. Benoît, Abbot of Masserac in Charlemagne's time; St. Martin of
Vertou (d. 601), apostle of the Herbauges district and founder of the
Benedictine monastery of Vertou; St. Hermeland, sent by St. Lambert,
Abbot of Fontenelle, at the end of the seventh century to found on an
island in the Loire the great monastery of Aindre (now Indret); the
celebrated missionary St. Amand, Bishop of Maastricht (seventh century),
a native of the district of Herbauges. Blessed Franoise d'Ambroise
(1427-85), who became Duchess of Brittany in 1450, had a great share in
the canonization of St. Vincent Ferrier, rebuilt the choir of the
collegiate church of Notre-Dame, and founded at Nantes the monastery of
the Poor Clares. Widowed in 1457, she resisted the intrigues of Louis
XI, who urged her to contract a second marriage, and in 1468 became a
Carmelite nun at Vannes. In 1477, at the request of Sixtus IV, she
restored the Benedictine monastery of Couëts, near Nantes. The
philosopher
Abelard
was a native of the diocese. The Abbey of La
Meilleraye, founded in 1132, was the beginning of an establishment of
Trappist Fathers, who played a most important part in the agricultural
development of the country. The crusades were preached at Nantes by
Blessed Robert of Arbrissel, founder of Fontevrault. Venerable Charles
of Blois won Nantes from his rival Jean de Montfort in 1341. On 8
August, 1499, Louis XII married Anne of Brittany at Nantes-a marriage
which later led to the annexation of the Duchy of Brittany to the Crown
of France (1532). Chateaubriant, a town of the diocese, was a Calvinistic
centre in the sixteenth century. For the Edict of Nantes (1595), which
granted Protestants religious freedom and certain political prerogatives,
see Huguenots.
In 1665, by order of Louis XIV, Cardinal Retz was imprisoned in the
castle of Nantes, from which he contrived to escape. A college was
created at Nantes in 1680 for the education of Irish ecclesiastics.
Certain regions of the diocese were, during the Revolution, the scene of
the War of La Vendée, waged in defence of religious freedom and to
restore royalty. At Savenay in December, 1793, succumbed the remains of
the Vendean army, already defeated in the battle of Cholet. The
atrocities committed at Nantes by the terrorist Carrier are well-known.
Four councils were held at Nantes, in 600, 1127, 1264, and 1431. The
mausoleum of Francis II, last Duke of Brittany, executed in 1507 by
Michel Colomb, is one of the finest monuments of the Renaissance. The
chief places of pilgrimage of the diocese are: Notre-Dame de Bon Garant
at Orvault, a very old pilgrimage, repeatedly made by Francis II, Duke of
Brittany; Notre-Dame de Bon Secours at Nantes, a pilgrimage centre which
dates back to the fourteenth century ; Notre-Dame de Toutes Aides.
Notre-Dame de Miséricorde became a place of pilgrimage in 1026 in memory
of the miracle by which the country is said to have been freed from a
dragon; the present seat of the pilgrimage is the Church of St. Similien
at Nantes. Before the law of 1901 against congregations, the diocese
counted Capuchins, Trappists, Jesuits, Missionary Priests of Mary,
Augustinians, Franciscans, Missionaires of Africa, Premonstratensians,
Sulpicians, and several orders of teaching brothers. The Ursulines of
Nantes were established by St. Angela of Merici in 1640.
Among the congregations for women originating in the diocese are: the
Sisters of Christian Instruction, a teaching order founded in 1820 at
Beignon (Diocese of Vannes) by Abbé Deshayes, of which the mother-house
was transferred to St-Gildas des Bois in 1828; Sisters of the Immaculate
Conception, a teaching and nursing order, founded in 1853 (mother-house
at La Haye Mahéas) ; Franciscan Sisters, founded in 1871 (mother-house at
St-Philbert de Grandlieu); Oblate Franciscan Sisters of the Heart of
Jesus, founded in 1875 by Mlle Gazeau de la Brandannière (mother-house at
Nantes). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the religious
congregations of the diocese conducted three crèches, 44 day nurseries, 3
homes for sick children, 1 institution for the blind, 1 deaf and dumb
institution, 6 boys' orphanages, 17 girls' orphanages, 3 homes for poor
girls, 1 institution for the extinction of mendicity, 2 houses of mercy,
1 house to supply work to the unemployed, 1 vestiary, 10 houses of
visiting nurses, 7 homes for invalids and for retirement, 23 hospitals or
asylums. The Diocese of Nantes has 664,971 Catholics, 52 parishes, 209
succursal parishes.
Gallia christ, (nova, 1856), XIV, 794-842; Instrumenta, 171-188; Travers,
Hist. abrégée des vgues de Nantes (3 vola., Nantes, 1836); Kersauson
L'épiscopat Nantais travers les siècles in Revue hist. de L'Ouest
(1888-90); Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, II, 356, 368; Cahors, L'apostolat
de Saint Clair, premier évêque de Nantes, tradition Nantaise (Nantes,
1883) ; De la Borderie, Etudes hist. bretonnes. St. Clair et les
origines de l'église de Nantes (Rennes, 1884); Richard, Etudes sur la
légende liturgique de Saint Clair, premier évêue de Nantes (Nantes,
1886); Richard, Les saints de l'église de Nantes (Nantes, 1873) ; Boyle.
The Irish College in Nantes (London, 1901); Lallié, Le Diocèse de Nantes
pendant la Révolution (Nantes, 1893). For further bibliography see
Chevalier, Topobibl., s. v.
GEORGES GOYAU
Transcribed by Joseph McIntyre
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X
Copyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York