According to a speech about the three Cathedral Towns in Lorraine, it was said “The rich of Metz, the saintly of Toul, the noble of Verdun.�
Discover the ancient Episcopal city of Toul…
|
 |
european institute of cultural routes |
|
| Caroline Hamajda |
| 27 March 2009 |
|
|
| Toul in gallo-roman times |
Situated in the Moselle, on the Roman road from Lyon to Trier, Toul was the main city of the Leuques, a gallo-roman tribe.
Since Augustinian times, the major road (voie d’Agrippa) linking Lyon and Trier has passed through the centre of Toul, a route which has remained the same over the years.
The Moselle Valley, the major roads and the proximity of Trier put the town into contact with the Mediterranean world: merchants, civil servants, artists, soldiers and missionaries use Toul as a stopover point.
|
|
| One of three cathedral towns in Lorraine |
Toul was evangelized very early on. The city’s first bishop, Saint Mansuy, came directly from Rome in the 4th century.
His bishop’s ring, embedded with a lapidation stone of Saint Etienne, is kept in the treasury at the cathedral of Nancy. The construction of the first cathedral, inside the city walls, is owed to him. This cathedral became cathedral Saint-Etienne de Toul.
This bishop was the first of a long line, of which many were canonized: Saint Epvre, around 540, Saint Gauzlin, whose treasure is kept in the sacristy of Nancy Cathedral (922-962), Saint Gerard (963-994), organizer of the pilgrimage of Sion, Bruno de Dagsbourg, who became Pope Leon IX in the 11th century and returned to Lorraine on many occasions.
In 925 Toul, until then par
Jacques Callot, Le Miracle de Saint Mansuy, The University of Michigant of Lotharingia, became involved with the Empire but at the same time kept some independence; the bishop of Toul exercised rights in the town and bishopric.
|
Jacques Callot, Le Miracle de Saint Mansuy, The University of Michigan
|
Statue of Pope LĂ©on IX in Eguisheim
|
While the bishop of Toul had more than 700 parishes and administered one of the biggest dioceses of the West, he was not regarded as highly as the bishop of Metz. Economic activity in Toul was nowhere near the same as Metz, nor did Toul have a powerful patriarchate.
Toul was primarily a religious centre, with the cathedral and its canons (originally sixty, the number then decreased to thirty seven), the collegiate church Saint-Gengoult de Toul and its fifteen canons, as well as other religious buildings (churches, hospitals, leper-houses).
From the 13th century, the royal French dynasty of the Capétiens became interested in Toul. With incorporation of the county of Champagne to the French crown, King Philippe le Bel imposed his guard on the town and bishopric, profiting from the rivality between the bishop and the bourgeois who wanted emancipation from the Bishop’s powers.
In 1552, the King of France Henry II occupied the three free towns of Verdun, Metz and Toul. A new administration was gradually put in place in these cities. In the 17th century Lorraine was marked by the misery and ruin caused by the Thirty Year War and the French occupation led by the French minister Richelieu and enforced by King Louis XIV. During the Treaties of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Year War, it was decided that the three bishoprics would be returned to the King.
In 1775 the diocese of which Toul is the capital was broken up to create the bishoprics of Nancy and Saint Dié. This started the town’s decline as a religious centre.
|
View of the city
|
Toul had been surrounded by ramparts since the early Empire, which were made bigger in 1239 to increase the town’s area from 10 to 30 hectares. Marks of the fortifications are still visible particularly near the gate of Saint-Gengoult. But the defenses were entirely removed when Toul became French in 1648.
In 1700, Vauban set about fortifying Toul. The town was enclosed with walls, which are still in quite a good state today, entered by three gates, (Gate of France, Gate of Moselle, worked on in 1877, and the Gate of Metz), then by a further gate, the Joan of Arc Gate, added more recently. The walls, made up of nine strongholds, are in a fairly rectangular shape: Vauban tried hard to create a new enclosure by replacing the chaotic medieval enclosure, allowing the town to be enlarged while demolishing the areas which were too salient. A canal allowed water to be carried from the Moselle to the town and to fill the moats.
Some of the fortifications are still visible today (ramparts, casemates), but the most spectacular section, the Metz Gate, is closed to the public due to the risk that it may collapse.
|
| Toul, a fortified town during armed conflict |
House where lived Bossuet's father
|
Although it had been fortified by Vauban from 1700, Toul had never been under fire until the war in 1870. The garrison, under the orders of Commander Huck, resisted the unrelenting German fire on the cathedral until the 23rd September.
From 1874, the town was incorporated into the “Séré de Rivière� system to make up the South end of the defenses in the Hauts de Meuse region. Toul was encircled by a line of forts and batteries, some of which were modernized from 1900. The town remained the core of the new fortified region.
Spared by the sieges and fighting of 1914, Toul was however seriously damaged, particularly the cathedral, during fighting led by the 51st and 58th brigades in June 1940, against the German 50th brigade who seized the town on 21st June.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 news
|
|
|
|
documents
|
|
|
|
media library
|
|
|
|
organizations
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
