 The diocese was constituted as a suffragan see of the new metropolitan see of Cambrai by the papal bull of 12 May 1559 establishing the new bishoprics in the Low Countries.Its territory had previously belonged to the Diocese of Liège.After suppression in the French period the diocese was re-established by the Concordat of 1801, its extent matching that of the Department of Sambre-et-Meuse, and as suffragan of the Archdiocese of Mechlin.