SENS
719
SENS
St. Columba's at Sens. In the thirteenth century
Stephen Langton and later St. Edmund, Archbishop
of Canterbury, also found refuge at Pontigny. The
Benedictine Abbey of St-Michel at Tonnerre was
founded about 800 on the site of a hermitage dating
from the time of Clovis I; it was restored about 980
by Milo, Count of Tonnerre. In the fifteenth century
Cardinal Alanus, legate of CaHistus III, numbered it
among the twelve most illustrious abbeys of Gaul.
The arrondissement of Avallon, now in the Diocese
of Sens, and formerly dependent on the Diocese of
Autun, possesses the celebrated monastery of Vezelay.
It was founded about 860 under the protection of
Christ and the Blessed Virgin by Gerard, Count of
Roussillon and his wife, Bertha; Gerard declared the
territory free and dependent only on the pope. Nich-
olas I in 867 and Charles the Bald in 868 confirmed
the donation. Eudes, the first abbot, offered hospi-
tality to John VIII, who in 879 consecrated the first
church of the monastery. The Norman invasions
laid waste the monastery, but it was restored under
Abbot Geoffrey, installed in 1037. Under this abbot
the cultus of St. Magdalen appeared for the first time
at Vezelay; a letter of Leo IX (10.50) shows that the
name of St. Magdalen was part of the official title of
the abbey. Mgr Duchesne has shown that the monks
of Vezelay, at this date, constructed a first account
according to which the tombs of Sts. Maximinus and
Magdalen, at St-Maximin in Provence, had been
opened and their bodies removed to Vezelay; shortly
afterwards a second account relates that there was
taken away only the body of St. Magdalen. For two
centuries the account of the monks of V6zelay was
accepted; Bulls of Lucius III, Urban III, and Clem-
ent III confirmed the statement that they po.ssessed
the body of St. .Magflalen. The tomb of the saint
was visited in the twelfth century by a host of illus-
trious pilgrims; "All France", wTi'tes Hugh of Poitiers,
"seems to go to the solemnities of the Magdalen."
In 1096 Abbot Artaud, who was later assassinated, had begun the construction of the Basilica of the Madeleine, which was dedicated in 1104 by Paschal II; his successor, Renaud de Semur, later Arch- bishop of Lyons, completed it, raised it from its ruins after the great fire of July, 1120, and also built the abbatial ch&teau. Alberic, a monk of Cluny, named abbot by Innocent II, built in front of the portal the narthex, or church of the catechumens, the door- ways of which have marvellously wrought archivolts and which was blessed by Innocent II in 1132 during his sojourn at Vezelay; he died a cardinal and Arch- bishop of Ostia. Under Abbot Pontius of Mont- boisier (d. 1161), a former monk of Cluny, Vezelay emancipated itself from Cluniac nile, declared its autonomy as against the claims of the bishops of Autun, and victoriously resisted the encroachments of the counts of Nevers. The second crusade was preached in 1146 by St. Bernard in the abbatial chateau amid such enthusiasm that the assistants tore their gar- ments to make crosses and distribute them to the crowd. Guillaume IV of Nevers sought to be re- venged on the monks of Vezelay, and his provost, L6thard, defying excommunication, forced the monks to take flight, but in 1166 Louis arranged a peace be- tween the Comte de Nevers and Abbot Guillaume de Mello. On Pentecost, 1166, St. Thomas k Becket from the pulpit of Vezelay pronounced excommunica- tion against the clerics who, to gratify King Henry II of England, had violated the rights of the Church. Louis VII came himself to Vezelay at Epiphany, 1167, to celebrate the reconciliation between the monks of Vezelay and Count Guillaume IV, and in expiation of his crimes Guillaume IV set out for the Holy Land where he died in 116S.
Under the rule of Abbot Girard d'Arcy (1171-96), Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion met at Vezelay in July, 1190, to arrange for the third
crusade. In place of the Romanesque apse burnt in
1165, Girard had built the choir to-day admired as
one of the most beautiful specimens of Burgundian
architecture and falsely attributed to Abbot Hugh, his
successor. St. Louis came to Vezelay in 1267 for a
solemn feast organized by the monks for the recog-
nition of the rehcs of St. Mary Magdalen and at which
Simon de Brion, the future Martin IV, represented
the Holy See as legate; St. Louis returned here in
1270 on his way to the crusade. This benevolence
of the kings of P'rance and the constant menace which
the abbey endured from the counts of Nevers led
the monks of Vezelay and the pope to accept the act
whereby Phihp the Bold in 1280 declared himself
protector and guardian of the Abbey. Hugues de
Maison-Comte, who became abbot in 1352 and was
taken prisoner with John II of France at the battle
of Poitiers, occupied himself after two years of cap-
tivity in England with fortifying the monastery
against an English attack; he rendered it impreg-
nable and in gratitude Charles V made him a member
of the royal council. The claims put forth by the
Dominicans of Provence, beginning in 1279, that they
possessed the body of St. Mary Magdalen injured
the prestige of Vezelay during the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries. In 1538 a Bull of secularization
sought from Paul III by Francis I and the monks them-
selves transformed the abbey into a simple collegiate
church. Odet de Chatillon, brother of Coligny and
Abbot of Vezelay, subsequently became a Calvinist.
The Huguenot masters of Vezelay converted the
Madeleine into a storehouse and stable and burned the
relics. During the Revolution the ancient monastery
builflings were sold at auction. In 1876 the future
Cardinal Bernadou, Archbishop of Sens, determined
to restore the i)ilgrimage of St. Mary Magdalen at
Vezelay and brought thither a relic of the saint
which Martin IV had given to the Chapter of Sens
in 1281.
A certain number of saints are honoured with a special cultus or are connected with the history of the diocese: St. Jovinian, martyr, lector of the church of Auxerre (third century); Sts. Sanctian, Augustine, Felix, Aubert, and Beata, Spaniards, martyred at Sens; St. Sidronius (Sidroine), possibly martyred under Aurelian, whose martyrdom is considered by the Bollandists as very doubtful; St. Justus, martyr, b. at Auxerre about the end of the third century; Sts. Magnentia and Maxima, virgins consecrated by St. Germain (fifth centur>'); St. Mamertinus, Abbot of St-Germain (fifty century); the priest St. Marien (sixth century); St. Romain, d. at the beginning of the sixth century in the monastery, which he founded in Auxerre, and in which St. Mauriis learned through a vision of the death of St. Benedict; St. Severin, d. at Chateau Landon, Diocese of Sens (506); St, Eligius (588-659), who administered the monastery of St. Columba before becoming Bishop of Noyon; St. Mathurin, a priest of Sens, d. 688; St. Patemus, a Benedictine, native of Coutances, monk at St- Pierre le Vif, and assassinated at Sergines (eighth century); St. Robert, Abbot of Tonnerre, founder of the Abbey, of Molesmes and of the Order of Citeaux (1018-1110); St. Thierry, Bishop of Orleans, reared at the monastery of St-Pierre le Vif, and d. in 1027 at Tonnerre; Bl. Alpaide, of Tonnerre (end of twelfth century); St. Guillaume, Archbishop of Bourges, previously a monk at Pontigny (d. in 1209). Jean Lebeuf (1687-1760), who in 1743 wTote the " Memoires contenant I'histoire ecclesiastique et civile d' Aux- erre", was a member of the Academy of Inscriptions.
The chief pilgrimages of the Diocese of Sens are: Notre Dame de Belle\aie at Tronchoy; Notre Dame de Champrond at Vinneuf ; the tomb of St. Columba at Sens; the altar of Sts. Savinian and Potentian at Sens, which according to legend is the stone on which St. Savinian fell. Before the application of
