Lille (taken from a Catholic encyclopidia on the web)
The ancient capital of Flanders, now the chief town of the Département du Nord in
France. A very important religious centre ever since the eleventh century, Lille became in
the nineteenth a great centre of industry. With a population of 12,818 in 1789, of 24,300
in 1821, of 140,000 in 1860, and of 211,000 in 1905, it is to-day the fourth city of
France in population. (For the early history of Christianity at Lille, see CAMBRAI,
ARCHDIOCESE OF.) The Legend according to which the giant Finard was killed in the seventh
century, by Lideric, whose mother, Ermengarde, he held prisoner, and according to which
Lideric founded the dynasty of the counts of Flanders, was invented in the thirteenth
century. The first Count of Flanders, as a matter of fact, was Baldwin of the Iron Arm, in
the ninth century (see FLANDERS), and nothing certain is known of Lille before the middle
of the eleventh century. The city seems to have been founded about that time by Count
Baldwin V, and in 1054 it was already so well fortified that Henry III, Emperor of
Germany, did not dare to besiege it. In 1055 Baldwin V laid the foundation stone of the
collegiate church of St. Peter, which was dedicated in 1066.
One of the oldest chronicles of Flanders says that the foundation of this collegiate
church was the beginning of the prosperity of the town. St. Peters was served by forty
canons and had very prosperous schools as early as the end of the eleventh century. About
the same time Raimbert, a Nominalist, who taught philosophy in St. Peter's school, was in
conflict with Odo, a Realist, afterwards Bishop of Carnbrai but at that time professor at
the convent of Notre-Dame de Tournai. Raimbert's Nominalism, however, was never carried to
the extremes which caused Boseclin's condemnation in 1092 Another teacher in St. Peter's
school was the celebrated Gautier de Châtillon (twelfth century), the author of the
Alexandreis a Latin epic on Alexander the Great which was used as a substitute for
Virgil's work in some of the medieval schools. Connected with the same school about the
same time were Alain de Lille surnamed the Universal Doctor (see ALAIN DE L'ISLE); Adam de
la Bassée, a canon of the collegiate church who composed beautiful liturgical chants;
Lietbert, Abbot of Saint-Ruf, author of a great commentary on the Psalms, "Flores
Psalmorum". St Thomas of Canterbury and St. Bernard of Clairvaux visited the
collegiate church of Lille, and in it Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, held, in 1481,
the first chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, founded by him in 1430 for the
defence of Christendom against the Turks. In a neighbouring palace was held the famous
"Feast of the Pheasant" (1453). in the midst of which Religion, mounted on an
elephant which was led by a giant Saracen, entered the banquet hall to beg aid from the
Knights of the Golden Fleece. Jean Miélot, a canon of St. Peter's at Lille, wrote for
Philip the Good twenty-two works, including translations, ascetical works, and
biographies. The most important of these works, "La Vie de sainte Catherine
d'Aléxandrie", was printed later. Miniatures of that period often represent this
canon offering Philip a book. It was he who, after the "Væu du Faisan",
translated a work of the Dominican Father Brochart, "Advis directif pour faire le
passage doultre-mer", and a description of the Holy Land.
About this time the preacher Jean d'Eeckhout. another canon of Lille, author of two
celebrated ascetical treatises, on the espousals of God the Father and the Virgin, and on
the espousals of God the Son and the sinful soul, yielded to the prevalent impulse towards
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died while on his pilgrimage, in 1472. Influenced by the
same movement, Anseim and John Adorno, members of a distinguished Genoese family settled
at Bruges, made a visit to the Holy Land of which the narrative is preserved in a
manuscript at Lille. John Adorno, on his return, became a canon of Lille and devoted
himself to spreading, throughout Flanders, the devotion to St. Catherine of Alexandria,
whose relics he had seen on Mount Sinai — hence the large number of Flemish works of
art having St. Catherine for their subject.
In the thirteenth century the statue of Note-Dame de la Trill, which stood in the
collegiate church of St. Peter, drew thither many pilgrims. The reputed miracles of 14
June, 1254, are famous. It is not certain from what year of that same century the
Confraternity of Note-Dame de la Trill dates; but it is historically certain that. in 1470
Margaret, Countess of Flanders, decreed that every year, on the first Sunday after Trinity
Sunday and for the nine days following, processions commemorating these miracles should be
held in the city. The fragment of the True Cross which is still preserved at St-Etienne,
Lille, was given to the chapter of St. Peter's by the Flemish priest, Walter of Courtrai,
who was chancellor of the Emperor Baldwin I at Constantinople. From the fourteenth to the
sixteenth century, the collegiate church of St. Peter was annually the scene of the
curious election of the "Bishop of Fools", on the Eve of the Epiphany, and, on
the feast of the Holy Innocents, of the election by the choristers of a "Bishop of
the Innocents", who was solemnly carried in procession. Another much frequented
religious festival at Lille was that of the "Epinette" (little thorn), the
solemnities of which began on Quinquagesima Sunday and lasted until Mid-Lent. The feast
was instituted in the first half of the thirteenth century shortly after the convent of
the Dominicans at Lille had received from the Countess Jeanne a fragment of the Crown of
Thorns; it ceased in 1487, when the burghers began to find the expense too heavy. The
veneration of the Mater Dolorosa originated in Flanders in the fifteenth century. The
first treatise on this devotion, which dates from 1494, was the work of the Dominican
Mieliel François, Bishop of Selimbria, and confessor of Philip the Fair, a native of
Templemars, near Lille. The chapter of St. Peter's immediately combined this devotion with
that of Notre Dame de la Treille, and erected in the church of St. Peter the stations of
the Seven Dolours, to be made in the same manner as the Way of the Cross.
The collegiate church also originated some important charitable works. Among these were
the Cour Gilson, a row of houses established by Canon Robert Gillesson in the
sixteenth century, the rents of which were to be used for works of piety and charity, the
orphanage of the Grange, founded in the sixteenth century by Canon Jean de Lacu; the
"marriage burses", or dowries for poor girls, instituted by Canon Etienne
Ruélin in the sixteenth century; the "prebends of the poor", a fund instituted
by Hangouard, dean of the chapter, to enable the aged poor to live with their children or
kin without being a burden to them; and an apprenticeship fund for the benefit of young
workmen, established by Provost Manare. Very modern ideas of assisting the poor were
devised and carried out as early as the sixteenth century by the canons of St. Peter's and
through the liberality of Jean de Lannoy, the collegiate scholasticus, a
mont-de-piété was established to lend money free of interest to the needy. The
collegiate church, again, hospitably received the English refugees, when the persecution
of Catholics was raging in England. Among its English canons were John Marshall (1534-68),
Allen's auxiliary in the foundation of Douai. and Gilford (1554-1629), who, in 1603, at
the peril of his life performed a mission in England for the Holy See, and who died
Archbishop of Reims: David Kearney, who in 1603 became Archbishop of Cashel in Ireland,
and suffered bitter persecution in that diocese. Until the sixteenth century the school of
St. Peter's was the only one where Latin and the humanities were taught; the City then
opened a school which was entrusted to Jesuits in 1592, and where the humanist John
Silvius taught. The collegiate church of St. Peter disappeared with the Revolution.
After having in medieval and modern times followed the destinies of Flanders, which
passed from the House of Burgundy to the House of Austria, the city of Lille became French
when it was conquered by Louis XIV in 1667 and fortified by Vauban. In 1792 it heroically
resisted the Austrians. During the nineteenth century two manufacturers of Lille,
Philibert Vrau (1829---1905) and Camille Fron-Vrau (1831-1908) laboured to form among the
numerous working men of the city a centre of Catholic activity. With the aid of the Abbé
Bernard, Philibert Vrau founded, in 1863, the Lille Union of Prayer, the
"Bulletin" of which gradually increased its circulation to 22,000; a 1866 he
established the "Cercle de Lille", which for many years held the district
Catholic Congress for the Département du Nord and the Pas de Calais, and in 1871 the lay
association for building new churches in the suburbs. Philibert Vrau and Camille Féron
Vrau undertook to build a basilica for the statue of Notre Dame de la Treille, hoping
that. the city of Lille would some day be detached from the Diocese of Cambrai and become
the seat of a new diocese with Notre Dame de la Treille as its cathedral. In 1885 they
established the Corporation of St. Nicholas for spinners and weavers, with an employers'
and a working. men's council, and a co-operative fund supported by monthly assessments on
both employers and employees.
The Catholic University of Lille, lastly, was the result of their continued and
generous efforts. This scheme was presented by Philbert Vrau in 1873 at the Catholic
Congress of the North; the Abbé Mortier, later Bishop of Gap, and the Abbé Dehaisnes,
known for his writings on the history of Flanders, were pointed to report. on the
question. In 1874, in the ancient ball of the Prefecture which had been rented for the
purpose by Philibert Vrau, law courses were opened to the public. The passing of the law
on the freedom of higher education (12 July, 1875) hastened the success of the foundation.
On 18 Nov., 1875, a complete law course was organized; on 18 Jan., 1877, the four
faculties of law sciences, letters, and medicine were inaugurated; on 22 Nov., 1879, the
cornerstone of the university was laid. As early as 1878 it was ascertained that the
hospital of St. Eugenia, attached to the faculty of medicine, had cared for as many as
2448 patients, and that the contributions received for the university already amounted to
6,473,263 francs (about $1,294,000). Philibert Vrau also took the initiative in
establishing, in 1880, the only professedly Catholic commercial school in France. The
school for higher industrial studies was established in 1885. As early as 1876 Philibert
Vrau contemplated the foundation of a Catholic school of arts and crafts at Lille, but it
was not until 1898 that the institute was inaugurated under Father Lacoutre, S.J. In 1894
there was added to the faculty of law a department of social and political science, and
lectures are now given every year by the most distinguished Catholic savants of France.
The system of political economy opposed to the intervention of the State in labour affairs
— a system long favoured by the Catholic industriels of Lille — was gradually
overthrown by the teaching given in this department, and Professor Duthoit's "Vers
l‘organisation professionelle", published in the spring of 1910, finally
confirmed the victory of Catholic social ideas at Lille.
In 1897, following the initiative taken by Cambridge and Oxford, the Catholic
University of Lille established a "University Extension" for the organization of
lectures by the university professors throughout the manufacturing centres in the vicinity
of Lille. In 1898 the university organized higher education for the Catholic girls of
Lille. In April, 1907, the Conseil Général du Nord suggested the suppression by the
state of the freedom of higher education and insisted upon ordinances preventing
physicians coming from the Catholic faculty of Lille from attending paupers in the
Département du Nord at the expense of the State. Before the creation of universities by
the French Government, the Catholic University of Lille presented the first example of
these institutions. As early as 1886, M. Lavisse, a professor at the Sorbonne, spoke in
high terms of this impressive group of faculties, saying that in centralized France it was
a distinguished honour to the University of Lille to have been incorporated in Flanders.
The faculties of higher education which the State controlled at Douai were transferred to
Lille in 1888 and raised, six years later, to the rank of a state university. Mgr Baunard
resigned the rectorship of the Catholic University in Oct., 1908, and was succeeded by Mgr
Margerin, who had distinguished himself in 1888 at Fournies by placing himself between the
workmen and the fire of the soldiers. Among the noteworthy works of art possessed by the
city of Lille is a wax head, preserved in the museum, purchased in Italy by Wicar during
the Revolution; it is ascribed by this connoisseur to Raphael; Alexandre Duinas the
younger attributed it to Leonardo da Vinci; Henry Thode claims that it was an antique
modelled after the head of a young Roman girl whose remains were found in 1485; M. Franz
Wickhoff, on the other hand, is inclined to regard it as the work of one of the pupils of
Victor of Cortona (end of the seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth), and
is of opinion that it is the head of a virgin and martyr.
VAN HENDE, Histoire de Lille de 620 à 1804 (Lille, 1875); ROGIE, Les
Oriqines du christianisme au pays de Lille (Lille, 1881); DEROBE, Histoire de Lille et de
la Flandre Wallonne (4 vols., Lille, 1848-78); FLAMMERMONT, Lille et le Nord au moyen âge
(Lille, 1888); HAUTCŒR, Documents liturqiques et nécrologiques de l'églis
collégiale de S. Pierre de Lille , 1895); IDEM, Cartulaire l'églis collégiale de S.
Pierre de Lille (2 vols., Lille, 1894); IDEM, Histoire de l'églis collégiale de du
chapitre S. Pierre de Lille (3 vols., Lille, 1896-99); LEURIDAN, La Chatellerie de Lille
(Lille, 1897); Lefebre, L'Evêque des Fous et la fête des Innocents à Lille du XIVe au
XVIe siècle (Lille, 1902); BAUNARD, Philibert Vrau et los ævres de Lille (Paris, 1905);
BAUNARD Vingt-cinq années de rectorat (Paris, 1909); BAUDRILLART; l'Enseignement
catholique dans la France contempornaine (Paris, 1910); WICKHOFF, Die Wachsbüstein in
Lille (Berlin. 1910); BOUVY, Annales de la faculté des lettres de Bordeaux, April-June,
1901.
GEORGES GOYAU
Transcribed by Mario Anello
