Originally erected in the 6th century as the Diocese of Cambrai, its jurisdiction was immense and included even Brussels and Antwerp. The creation of the new metropolitan See of Mechlin in 1559 and of eleven other dioceses was at the request of Philip II of Spain in order to facilitate the struggle against the Reformation. The change greatly restricted the limits of the Diocese of Cambrai which, when thus dismembered, was made by way of compensation an archiepiscopal see with St. Omer, Tournai and Namur as suffragans. By the Concordat of 1802 Cambrai was again reduced to a simple bishopric, suffragan to Paris, and included remnants of the former dioceses of Tournai, Ypres, and St. Omer. In 1817 both the pope and the king were eager for the erection of a see at Lille, but Bishop Louis de Belmas (1757-1841), a former constitutional bishop, vigorously opposed it. Immediately upon his death, in 1841, Cambrai once more became an archbishopric with the diocese of Arras as suffragan.
For the first bishops of Arras and Cambrai, who resided at the former place, see Arras. On the death of St. Vedulphus (545-580) the episcopal residence was transferred from Arras to Cambrai. Among his successors were:
Wiboldus (965-966), author of the ludus secularis which furnished amusement to clerkly persons
Gerard of Florennes (1013-1051), formerly chaplain to St. Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, and helpful to the latter in his negotiations with Robert the Pious, King of France; (Gerard also converted by persuasion the Gondulphian heretics, who denied the Eucharist)
Blessed Odo (1105-1113), celebrated as a professor and director of the school of Tournai, also as a writer and founder of the monastery of St. Martin near Tournai
Burchard (1115-1131), who sent Saint Norbert and the Premonstratensians to Antwerp to combat the heresy of Tanquelin's disciples concerning the Blessed Eucharist
In the Middle Ages the Diocese of Cambrai was included in that part of Lorraine which, after various vicissitudes, passed under German rule in 940, and in 941 the Emperor Otto the Great ratified all the privileges that had been accorded the Bishop of Cambrai by the Frankish kings. Later, in 1007, St. Henry II invested him with authority over the countship of Cambrésis; the Bishop of Cambrai was thus the overlord of the twelve "peers of Cambresis". Under Louis XIV (1678) the Bishopric of Cambrai once more became French. The councils of Leptines, at which St. Boniface played an important role, were held in what was then the Belgian part of the former Diocese of Cambrai.
Notable people
The list of the saints of the Diocese of Cambrai is very extensive, and their biographies, although short, take up no less than four volumes of the work by Canon Destombes. Exclusive of those saints whose history would be of interest only in connection with the Belgian territory formerly belonging to the diocese, mention may be made of St. Eubertus, an itinerant bishop, martyred at Lille (third century);
St. Chrysole, martyr, patron of Comines, and St. Piat, martyr, patron of Tournai and Seclin (end of third century);
The Jesuits Cortyl and du Béron, first apostles of the Pelew Islands, were martyred in 1701, and Chomé (1696-1767), who was prominent in the Missions of Paraguay and Argentina in the province of Misiones, also the OratorianGratry (1805-1872), philosopher and member of the French Academy, were natives of the Diocese of Cambrai. The English college of Douai, founded by William Allen in 1568, gave in subsequent centuries a certain number of apostles and martyrs to Catholic England. Since the promulgation of the law of 1875 on higher education, Lille has been the seat of important Catholic faculties.
Places
Abbeys
Under the old regime the Archdiocese of Cambrai had forty-one abbeys, eighteen of which belonged to the Benedictines. Chief among them were:
the Abbey of St. Géry, founded near Cambrai about the year 600 in honour of St. Médard by St. Géry (580-619), deacon of the church of Treves, and who built a chapel on the bank of the Senne, on the site of the future city of Brussels;
the Abbey of St. Ghislain, founded in the seventh century by the Athenian philosopher, St. Ghislain, and having as abbots St. Gerard (tenth century) and St. Poppo (eleventh century);
the Abbey of Liessies (eighth century) which, in the sixteenth century, had for abbot Ven. Louis de Blois, author of numerous spiritual writings;
the Abbey of St. Sauve de Valenciennes (ninth century), founded in honour of the itinerant bishop St. Sauve (Salvius), martyred in Hainaut at the end of the eighth century;
Notre-Dame de Grâce at Cambrai, containing a picture ascribed to St. Luke;
Notre-Dame des Dunes at Dunkerque, where the special object of interest is a statue which, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, was discovered near the castle of Dunkerque;
the feast associated with this, 8 September, 1793, coincided with the raising of the siege of this city by the Duke of York;
Notre-Dame des Miracles at Bourbourg, made famous by a miracle wrought in 1383, an account of which was given by the chronicler Froissart, who was an eyewitness. A Benedictine abbey formerly extant here was converted by Marie Antoinette into a house of noble canonesses. Until a comparatively recent date, the great religious solemnities in the diocese often gave rise to ducasses, sumptuous processions in which giants, huge fishes, devils, and representations of heaven and hell figured prominently. Before the law of 1901 was enforced there were in the diocese Augustinians, English Benedictines, Jesuits, Marists, Dominicans, Franciscans, Lazarists, Redemptorists, Camillians, Brothers of St. Vincent de Paul, and Trappists; the last-named still remain. Numerous local congregations of women are engaged in the schools and among the sick, as, for instance: the Augustinian Nuns (founded in the sixth century, mother-house at Cambrai);
the Bernardines of Our Lady of Flines (founded in the thirteenth century);
the Daughters of the Infant Jesus (founded in 1824, mother-house at Lille);
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