TOURS
TOURS
eathedral of Tours, dedicated to St. Gatianus, dates
from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth cen-
turies. Tlic windows, which belon}?; to the thirteenth,
are anions the most beautiful in France. The towers
belong to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The
chapter of Tours is the oldest in France. It is said
that it was established by St. Baud, who gave the
canons property quite distinct from that of the arch-
diocese. Simon de Briou, pope from 1281 to 1285
under the name of Martin IV, was canon and treas-
urer of the church of St. Martin of Tours.
The jjrest ige of the Church of Tours was very great during the Middle Ages. In a letter to Charles the Bald Adrian II designates it as the second in France. Philip Augustus in a letter to Lucius III says that he considers it one of the most beautiful jewels of his crown and that whosoever attacks this church attacks his own person. Kings .lohn II, Charles VII, Chailes VIII, and Henry III would never consent when they gave Touraine in fief that this church should be sep- arated from the crown. It owed this i)restige chiefly to the Basilica of St. Martin. This was first built by St. Perpetuus and dedicated in 472. It was there that Clovis was clothed with the purple robe and the chlamys sent him with the title of consul by the Em- peror Anastasius. As early as the sixth centur> St. Martin's was a real religious centre. Queen Clotilde died in 545 in the vicinity of the basilica, and in the same neighbourhood St. Radegunde founded a small monastery, near which St. Gregory of Tours built the Church of the Holy Cross. Ingeltrude, daughter of Clotaire I, founded the monastery of Notre-Danie- de-l'Ecrignole, St. Monegunde that of St-Pierre-le- Puellier. When Charlemagne, before setting out to receive the imperial crown at Rome, assembled at Tours (SOO) the lords of his empire and dividcfl his estates among his sons, his wife Luitgarde died there, and was buried at St-\Iartin. He ga\'e the Church vast possessions in France and Normandy. Abbot Ithier, his chancellor, founded with .some monks from St-Martin the monastery of Cormery. Alcuin, who succeeded Ithier in 796 and was buried in the basilica in 804, founded there a school of calligraphy to which is due the preservation of many ancient works. At this school, directed after .Alcuin by Fredegisus (804- 34), Adelard (834-45), and Count Vivian (84.5-54), were copied and illustrated the celebrated Bible of Charles the Bald and the Gospels of Lothaire pre- served at the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, the Virgil in the library of Berne, the Arithmetic of Boetius in the library of Bamberg, and the superb Gospels preserved in the library of Tours, written throughout in gold letters on white vellum, and on which the kings of France took the oath as abbots of St-Martin. The beautiful artistic labours of the canons were disturbed by the Xorman invasions.
The body of St. Martin was transported by the canons to Auxerre in 853 to safeguard it against the invasions of the Northmen. Count Ingelger had to march with 6000 men again.st Auxerre in 884, before the body was restored. From 845 the abbots of St- Martin were laymen, namely the dukes of France, ancestors of Hugh C.ipet. When, in 987, Hugh Capet became King of France he joined the dignity of Abbot of .St-Martin with the Crown of France in perpetuity. The Abbey of St-Martin had as honorary canons the Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, Brittany, Vendome, and Nevers, the Counts of Flanders, Dunois, the P^arl of Douglas in Scotland, the Lords of Preuilly and Part he- nay. From Clovis, doubtless until Philip Augu.stus, it enjoyed the right of coinage. Ble.-^sed Herv^, treasurer of the basilica, caused it to be rebuilt about 1000. It was in the .abbey rebuilt by Herve that Philip I, King of PVance, in 1092 arranged to meet Bertr.ade de Montfort, wife of Foulques le Rf^chin. and carried her off to the great scandal of the kingdom. Urban II, who came to Tours in 1096, refused to re-
move the excommunication inflicted on Philip and
Bertrade. Paschal II in 1107, Callistus II in 1119,
Innocent II in 1130, and Ale.x.ander III in 1163 came
thither to venerate the tomb of St. Martin. Richard
Cocur de Lion in 1190 and John of Brienne in 1223
took there the pilgrim's staff piior to setting out on
the crusadt. Louis XI had great devotion to St.
Martin. The day on which he learned in the basihca
itself of the death of Ch.arles the Bold he vowed to
surround the tomb of the saint with a sih-er grating,
the cost of which would to-day equal 2,148,000 francs.
In 1522 Francis I seized this grating, despite the chap-
ter and the people of Tours. The devastations of the
Reformation .and the Revolution destroyed the Basil-
ica of .St. Martin. There now remain only two large
towers, but at the end of the nineteenth century Car-
dinal Meignan caused a new basilica to be erected on
the site of the old one.
According to the legend, the Abbey of St. Juhan arose around a church the building of which was or- dered by Clovis after his victory of Vouill6 over the Visigoths. It is historically certain that there were monks from Auvergne there in the sixth eenlury, on whom Gregory of Tours imposed the Rule of St . Bene- dict and to whom he gave the relics of St. .lulian of Brioude. The Northmen destroyed this first mon- astery; it was rebuilt about 937 by St. Odo, Abbot of C'luny, and .\rchbishop Theotolon. The present Church of .St. Juli.an is a beautiful monument of the thirteenth century.
The monasterj- of Marmoutier dates from St. Martin. Near the grottos where St. Gati.anus cele- brated Mass he established some cells. The cell of St . Brice is still to be seen, .\nother grotto, known as the grotto of t he Seven .Sleepers, was inhabited by seven brothers, cousins of .St. Martin, who all died on the same day after a lethargj'. In the ninth centurj' the Abbey of Marmoutier was ravaged by the Northmen, and out of 140 religious only 20 escaped massacre and were sheltered by the canons of .St-Martin. Mar- moutier was subsequently inhabited by a small colony of canons, and in 9.82 the abbey, which had fallen into some disorders, was restored by .St. Mayeul, Abbot of Cluny, at the instance of Eudes I, Count of Blois and of Tours, who died a monk at Marmoutier. Urban II came to Marmoutier in 1096 and dedicated the newly- built basilica. Hubaud, canon of .St-Martin and brother of the heresiarch Berenger, gave to Marmou- tier superb pieces of religious gold work in order to secure prayers for Berenger, who died at the priory of .St-C6me, which was dependent on Marmoutier. The fortune of the abbey was considerable, a popidar say- ing runs: —
"De quelque c6t(? que le vent vente, Marmoutier a cens et rente."
In the eleventh centurj- 101 priories were founded dependent on Marmoutier, ten of them in England. Hugh I, Abbot of Marmoutier from 1210 to 1226, or- ganized the estates of Meslay and Louroux, which were models of agricultural exploitation, and began the reconstruction of the basilica. The latter under- taking was hindered by the violent attacks made by the counts of Blois on the monks of Marmoutier. In 1253 .St. Louis took the abbey under his protection. In 1.562 it was pillaged by the Protestants and the Revolution destroyed it almost entirely. The crosier gateway (I'lirtiiil ilr In Crosse) which remains standing dates from the thirteenth centurj'. The origin of the town of Loches was the monastery founded by St. Ours about the beginning of the sixth century. He installed in the bed of the Indre a hand-mill which be- came a place of pilgrimage. Geoffroy Cirisegonelle, Count of Anjou, founded at Loches a Byzantine colle- giate church to which he gave a girdle of the Blessed Virgin. Repaired in the twelfth century by the prior, Thomas Paclius, this church still exists. In the dungeon of Loches, foundeii about 1000 by Foulques
