SAINT-DI^
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SAINT-DI]^
Martin (disciples of St-Diej, Abbot Spinulus (Spin),
John the priest, and the deacon Benignus (disciples
of St. Hidulphus) are honoured as saints. In the
tenth century, the discipline of the Abbey of St-Die
grew lax, and Frederick I, Duke of Lorraine, expelled
the Benedictines, replacing them by the Canons Reg-
ular of St. Augustine. Gregory V, in 996, agreed
to the change and decided that the grand prevot,
the principal dignitary of the transformed abbey,
should depend directly on the Holy See.
During the sixteenth century, profiting by the long vacancy of the See of Toul, the abbots of the several
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monasteries in the Vosges, without actually declaring themselves independent of the Diocese of Toul, claimed to exercise a quasi-episcopal jurisdiction as to the origin of which, however, they were not agreed; in the eighteenth centurj^ they pretended to be nullius dioceseos. In 1718, Thiard de Bissy, Bishop of Toul, requested the erection of a see at St-Di(^; Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, was in favour of this step, but the King of France opposed it; the Holy See re- frained for the time from action. In 1777 a Bull of Pius VI erected the abbey of St-Dic into an episcopal see, and cut off from the Diocese of Toul (see N.\n'cy, Diocese of) the new Diocese of St-Dic, which, until the end of the old regime, was a suffragan of Trier. Louis Caverot, who died as Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, was Bishop of St-Die from 18-19 to 1870.
The Abbey of Remiremont was founded about 620 by Saint Romaric, a lord at the court of Clotaire II, who, having been converted by Saint Ame, a monk of Luxeuil, took the habit at Luxeuil; it com- prised a monastery of monks, among whose abbots were Sts. Ame (570-02.5), Romaric (580-653), and Adelphus (d. 670), and a monastery of nuns, which numbered among its abbesses Sts. Mactefelda (d. about 622), Claire (d. about 652), and Gebetrude (d. about 673). At a later period the Benedictine nuns were replaced by a chapter of ninety-eight canonesses who had to prove 200 years of nobility, and whose last abbess, under the old regime, was the Princess de Bourbon Conde, sister of the Duke of Enghien; she was prioress of the Monastery of the Temple at her death.
Besides the saints mentioned above and some others, bishops of Nancy and Toul, the following are hon- oured in a special manner in the Diocese of St-Die; St. Sigisbert, King of Austrasia (630-56); St. Germain, a hermit near Remiremont, a martvr, who died Abbot of Grandval, near Basle (618-70); St. Hunna, a penitent at St-Die (d. about 672); St. Dagobert II, King of Austrasia, slain by his servant Grimoald (679) and honoured as a martyr; St. Modesta, a nun at Remiremont, afterwards foundress and abbess of the monastery of Horren at Trier (seventh century); St. Goery, Bishop of Metz (d. about 042), whose relics are preserved at Epinal and who is the patron of the butchers of the town; St. Simeon, Bishop of Metz (eighth century), whose
relics are preser^^ed at Senones; Sts. William and
Achery, hermits near Ste Marie aux Mines (ninth
century); St. Richarda (840-90), wife of Charles the
Fat, who died as Abbess of Andlau in Alsace; Blessed
Joan of Arc, b. at Domremy in the diocese; Venerable
Mere Alix le Clerc (b. at Remiremont, 1576; d. 1622)
and St. Peter Fourier (b. at Mericourt, 1555; d.
1640), cur6 of Mattaincourt, who founded the Order
of Notre-Dame. Elizabeth de Ranfaing (b. at Remire-
mont, 1592; d. 1049) founded in the Diocese of Toul
the congregation of Our Lady of Refuge; Catherine
de Bar (b. at St-Die, 1014; d. 1098), known as Mere
Mechtilde of the Blessed Sacrament, at first an
Annunciade nun and then a Benedictine, founded at
Paris, in 1054, the Order of the Benedictines of the
Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament;
following in her footsteps Elizabeth Brem (1009-08),
kno^vn as Mother Benedict of the Passion (1009-
68), a Benedictine nun at Rambervillers, established
in that monastery the Institute of the Perpetual
Adoration. The remains of Brother Joseph Formet,
knowm as the hermit of Ventron (1724—84), are the
object of a pilgrimage. Venerable Jean Martin
Moye (1730-93), founder in Lorraine of the Congre-
gation de la Providence for the instruction of young
girls and apostle of Su-Tchuen, was director for a
brief i)eriod of the seminary of St-Di6, and established
at Esscgney, in the diocese, one of the first novitiates
of the SiL'urs de la Providence (hospitallers and teach-
ers), whose mother-house at Portieux ruled over a
large number of houses before the Law of 1901.
Grandclaude, a village teacher who was sent to the
Roman College in 1857 by Bishop Caverot, contributed,
when a professor in the grand seminaire of St-Di6, to
the revival of canon law studies in France.
It is interesting to note how at St-Di(5, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, the newly-dis- covered continent received the name of America. Vautrin Lud, Canon of St-Die and chaplain and secre- tary of Rene II, Duke of Lorraine, set up a print- ing-establishment at St-Die in which two Alsatian geographers, Martin Waldseemiiller and Mathias Ringmann, began at once to produce an edition of a Latin translation of Ptolemy's "geography". In 1507 Ren6 II received from Li.sbon the abridged account, written in French, of the four voy- ages of Vespuc(-i. Lud had this trans- lated into Latin by Basin de San- daucourt. T h e printing of the tran.slation was completed at St- Die on 24 April, 1507; it was pref- aced by a short writing entitled "Cosmographiio introductio", cer- tainly the work of Waldseemiiller, and was dedicated to Emperor Maxi- milian. In this preface Waldsee- miiller proposed the name of America. A second edi- tion appeared at St-Dic in August, 1507, a third at Strasburg in 1509, and thus the name of America was spread about. The work was re-edited with an Eng- lish version by Charles G. Herbermann (New York, 1907). M. Gallois has proved that in 1507 Waldsee- miiller inserted this name in two maps, but that in 1513, in other maps, Waldseemiiller, being better
Chttrch of Notre-Dame, IX Cv
Adjoining the Cathedral of a
