Lisieux

Lisieux was an episcopal town in Normandy, its bishops ruling a county as well as tending a diocese. The cathedral of Saint-Pierre, begun under Bishop Arnoul in the twelfth century, brought elements of the Gothic architecture of the Île-de-France into Normandy. Its later chapels show how successive bishops left their mark on the church.

Among them was Nicole Oresme, a scholar and adviser to Charles V, who held the see from 1377 to 1382. In 1432 Pierre Cauchon became bishop of Lisieux after presiding over Joan of Arc's trial at Rouen. He had the cathedral's axial chapel rebuilt in the flamboyant Gothic style and was buried there. Thomas Basin, a later bishop of Lisieux and noted historian, supported the posthumous rehabilitation of Joan's memory.