Gap is a commune in France, the préfecture (capital) of the Hautes-Alpes département.

Geography

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An Alpine crossroads at the intersection of D994 and Route Nationale 85 the Route Napoléon, Gap lies 2,406 feet above sea level along the right bank of the Luye River (close to where it joins the Durance River).

History

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Originally founded by the Gauls, the Roman emperor Augustus seized the town in 14 BC and renamed it Vapincum. Gap was annexed by the French crown in 1512.

Napoleon I left Elba in February of 1815 and had reached Gap on March 15 with 40 horsemen and 10 grenadiers where he had thousands of copies of his Proclamations printed. The whole population of the city accompanied Napoleon when he left Gap.

Ecclesiastical history

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The Catholic diocese, a suffragan of Aix, includes the départment of the Hautes-Alpes. Suppressed by the Concordat of 1801 and then united to Digne, this diocese was re-established in 1822 comprising, besides the ancient diocese of Gap, a large part of the ancient archdiocese of Embrun. The name of this last metropolitan see, however, has been absorbed in the title of the Archbishop of Aix.

Ancient traditions in liturgical books, of which at least one dates from the fourteenth century, state that the first Bishop of Gap was St. Demetrius, disciple of the Apostles and martyrs. Father Victor de Buck in the Acta Sanctorum (October, XI) finds nothing inadmissible in these traditions, while Canon Albanès defends them against M. Roman. Albanès names as bishops of Gap the martyr St. Tigris (fourth century), then St. Remedius (394-419), whom the Abbé Duchesne makes a Bishop of Antibes and who was involved in the struggle between Pope Zosimus and Bishop Proculus of Marseilles, finally St. Constantinus, about 439. According to Duchesne the first historically known bishop is Constantinus, present at the Council of Epaone in 517. The church of Gap had, among other bishops, St. Aregius (or St. Arey, 579-610?), who established at Gap a celebrated literary school and was held in great esteem by St. Gregory the Great; also St. Arnoude (1065-1078), a monk of Trinité de Vendôme, named bishop by pope Alexander II to replace the simoniac Ripert, and who became the patron of the episcopal city.

The diocese of Gap possesses two noted places of pilgrimage, Notre-Dame d'Embrun at Embrun, where Charlemagne erected a basilica, visited by Pope Leo III and Kings Henry II of France and Louis XVIII. Louis XI was wont to wear in his cap a leaden image of Notre-Dame d'Embrun. The other is that of Notre-Dame du Laus, where during fifty-four years (1664-1718) the blessed Virgin appeared "an incalculable number of times" to a shepherdess, Venerable Benoite Rencurel. Three orders of women had their origin in the diocese. The Sisters of Providence, a teaching and nursing order, established in 1823 from the Sisters of Portieux (in the Vosges) and after 1837 an independent congregation; the Sisters of Saint Joseph, founded in 1837 for teaching and nursing; the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, founded in 1835 for teaching. The diocese of Gap, numbering 109,510 inhabitants, had in 1906 at the cessation of the Concordat, 26 parishes, 218 missions, and 15 curacies, paid by the state. During the Middle Ages there were in the mountainous region which forms the present diocese more than seventy hospitals, maladreries, lazarettoes, or houses of refuge, administered by two congregations of the vicinity, the Brothers of La Madeleine and the Brothers of Holy Penitence. About half of these asylums disappeared during the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The others with the exception of half a score were suppressed by royal command about 1690, and their goods given to the large hospitals of Gap, Embrun, and Briangon. In 1900, before the Law of Associations was enforced, there were in the diocese of Gap five maternity hospitals, a school for deaf mutes, one orphanage for boys and two for girls, seven hospitals or asylums, two institutions for the care of the sick in their homes, all under the direction of religious orders.

Sources and external links

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• Gap city council website
• Gallia Christiana (Nova, 1715), I, 452-473, Instrumenta, 86-89, (Nova, 1725), III, 1051-1107; Instrumenta, 177-188, 205-8;
• ALBANES, Gallia christiana Novissima (Montbeliard, 1899), I,
• DEPERY, Histoire hagiologique du diocese de Gap (Gap, 1852);
• FISQUET, France Pontificale (Paris, 1868);
• GAILLAUD, Histoire de Notre Dame d'Embrun (Gap, 1862);
• ROMAN, Sigillographie du diocese de Gap (Grenoble, 1870);
• IDEM, Tableau historique du departement des Hautes-Alpes (Paris, 1889-91);
• CHEVALIER, Topo-bibl., pp. 988, 1266.

Communes of Hautes-Alpes | Préfectures

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