in 1589, the year when all Europe, and the world at large, was ringing
with the defeat of the Armada and the triumph of Protestantism. He
studied and taught first at Douai and then at Antwerp, where, also after
the manner of the Jesuits, he entered upon active pastoral work, in
which he caught a contagious fever, of which he died A.D. 1629. His
literary life was very active, and very fruitful in such literature as
delighted that age. Thus he produced editions of various martyrologies,
the modern Roman, the ancient Roman, and that of Ado; he discussed the
question of keeping faith with heretics; took an active share in the
everlasting controversy concerning the "Imitatio Christi," wherein he
espoused the side of A-Kempis and the Augustinians, as against Gerson
and the Benedictines; published the lives of the Eastern Ascetics, who
were the founders of modern monasticism; debated with Isaac Casaubon
concerning Baronius; and published, in 1607, the "Lives of the Belgic
Saints," where we find the first sketch or general plan of the "Acta
Sanctorum." The idea of this great work suggested itself to Rosweid
while living at Douai, where he used to employ his leisure time in the
libraries of the neighbouring Benedictine monasteries, in search of
manuscripts bearing on the lives of the Saints. It was an age of
criticism, and he doubtless felt dissatisfied with all existing
compilations, content as they were to repeat, parrot-like and without
any examination, the legends of earlier ages. It was an age of research,
too--more fruitful in some respects than those which have followed--and
he felt that an immense mass of original material had never yet been
utilized. It was at this period of his life he produced the work above
mentioned, which we have briefly named the "Lives of the Belgic Saints,"
but the full title of which is, "Fasti Sanctorum quorum Vitæ in Belgicis
Bibliothecis Manuscriptæ." He intended it as a specimen of a greater and
more comprehensive work, embracing the lives of all the Saints known to
the Church throughout the world. He proposed that it should embrace
sixteen volumes, divided in the following manner:--The first volume
dealing with the life of Christ and the great feasts; the second with
the life of the Blessed Virgin and her feasts; the third to the
sixteenth with the lives of the Saints according to the days of the
month, together with no less than thirteen distinct indexes,
biographical, historical, controversial, geographical, and moral; so
that the reader might not have any ground for the complaint so often
brought against modern German scholars, that they afford no apparatus to
help the busy student when consulting their works. Rosweid's idea as to
the manner in which those volumes should be compiled was no less
original. He proposed first of all to bring together all the lives of
Saints that had been ever published by previous hagiographers; which he
would then compare with ancient manuscripts, as he was convinced that
considerable interpolation had been made in the narratives. In addition,
he desired to seek in all directions for new materials; and to
illustrate all the lives hitherto published or unpublished, by
explaining obscurities, reconciling difficulties, and shedding upon
their darker details the light of a more modern criticism. Rosweid's
fame was European in the first quarter of the seventeenth century; and
his proposal attracted the widest attention. To the best judges it
seemed utterly impracticable. Cardinal Bellarmine heard of it, and
proved his keenness and skill in literary criticism by asking what age
the man was who proposed such an undertaking. When informed that he was
about forty, "Ask him," said the learned Cardinal, "whether he has
discovered that he will live two hundred years; for within no smaller
space can such a work be worthily performed by one man,"--an unconscious
prophecy, which has found in fact a most ample fulfilment; for death
snatched away Rosweid before he could do more towards his great
undertaking than accumulate much precious material; while more than two
hundred years have elapsed, and yet the work is not completed.
After the death of Rosweid, the Society of Jesus, which now regarded the
undertaking as a corporate one, entrusted its continuation to Bollandus.
He was thirty-three years of age, and had distinguished himself in every
branch of the Society's activity as a teacher, a divine, a scholar, and
an orator. In this last capacity, indeed, it was his duty to address
Latin sermons to the aristocracy of Antwerp, a fact which betokens a
much more learned audience than now falls to any preacher's lot. He was
a wise director of conscience too, a sphere of duty in which the Jesuits
have always delighted. A story is told illustrating his skill in this
direction. One of the highest magistrates of the city, being suddenly
seized with a fatal illness, despatched a messenger for Bollandus, who
at once responded to the call, only however to find the sick man in
deepest trouble, on account of the sternness with which he had exercised
his judicial functions. He acknowledged that he had often been the means
of inflicting capital punishment when the other judges would have passed
a milder sentence in the belief that he was rescuing the condemned from
greater crimes, which they would inevitably commit, and securing the
salvation of their souls through the repentance to which their ghostly
adviser would lead them prior to their execution. Bollandus at once
perceived that he had to deal with the over-scrupulous conscience of one
who had striven, according to his light, to do his duty. He therefore
produced his breviary, and proceeded to read and expound the hundred and
first psalm, "I will sing of mercy and judgment;" making such a very
pertinent application of it to the magistrate's case, as led him to cry
out with tears, "What comfort thou hast brought me, Father! now I die
happy." A consideration of these numerous and apparently inconsistent
engagements may not be without some practical use in this age. Looking
at the varied occupations of Bollandus and his fellows, and at the
massive works which they at the same time produced, who can help smiling
at the outcry which the advocates for the endowment of research, as they
style themselves, raised some time ago against the simple proposal of
the Oxford University Commission, that well-endowed professors should
deliver some lectures on their own special subjects? Such a practice,
they maintained, would utterly distract the mind from all original
investigation of the sources. Such certainly was not the case with the
Bollandists, who yet could make time carefully--far more carefully than
most modern historians--to investigate the sources of European history.
But then the Bollandists were real students, and had neither lawn tennis
nor politics to divert them from their chosen career.
Bollandus again is a healthy study for us moderns in the triumph
exhibited by him of mind over matter, of the ardent student over
physical difficulties. His rooms were no pleasant College chambers,
lofty, commodious, and well-ventilated; on the contrary the apartments
where the volumes commemorating the saints of January saw the light were
two small dark chambers next the roof, exposed alike to the heat of
summer and the cold of winter, in the Jesuit House at Antwerp. In them
were heaped up, for such is the expression of his biographer, the
documents accumulated by his Society during forty years. How vast their
number must have been is manifest from this one fact that Bollandus
possessed upwards of four hundred distinct Lives of Saints, and more
than two hundred histories of cities, bishoprics, and monasteries in the
Italian language alone, whence our readers may judge of the size of the
entire collection which dealt with the saints and martyrs of China,
Japan, and Peru, as well as those of Greece and Home.
Bollandus was summoned to his life's work in 1629. He at once entered
upon a vigorous pursuit of fresh manuscripts in every quarter of the
globe, wherein he was mightily assisted by the organization of the
Jesuit Society, and by the liberal assistance bestowed upon his
undertaking by successive abbots of the great Benedictine Monastery of
Liessies, near Cambray, specially by Antonius Winghius, the friend and
patron, first of Rosweid, and then of Bollandus. Indeed, it was the
existence and rich endowments of those great monasteries which explains
the publication of such immense works as those of Bollandus, Mabillon,
and Tillemont, quite surpassing any now issued even by the wealthiest
publishers among ourselves, and only approached, and that at a distance,
by Pertz's "Monumenta" in Germany.
New material was now poured upon him from every quarter, from English
Benedictines even and Irish Franciscans; though indeed, as regards the
latter, Bollandus seems to have cherished a wholesome suspicion as to
the genuineness of many, if not most, of the Irish legends. But
Bollandus, though he worked hard, and knew no other enjoyment save his
work, was only human. He soon found the labour was too great for any one
man to perform, while, in addition, he was racked and torn with disease
in many shapes; gout, stone, rupture, all settled like harpies upon his
emaciated frame, so that in 1635 he was compelled to take Henschenius as
his assistant. This was in every respect a fortunate choice, as
Henschenius proved himself a man of much wider views as to the scope of
the work than Bollandus himself. Bollandus had proposed simply to
incorporate the notices of the Saints found in ancient martyrologies and
manuscripts, adding brief notes upon any difficulties of history,
geography, or theology, which might arise. To Henschenius was allotted
the month of February. He at once set to work, and produced under the
date of Feb. 6, exhaustive memoirs of SS. Amandus and Vedastus, Gallic
bishops of the sixth and eleventh centuries whose lives present a
striking picture of those troubled times, amid which the foundations of
French history were laid. Henschenius scorned the narrow limits within
which his master would fain limit himself. He boldly launched out into a
discussion of all the aspects of his subject, discussing not merely the
men themselves, but also the history of their times, and doing that in a
manner now impossible, as the then well stored, but now widely scattered
muniment rooms of the abbeys of Flanders and Northern France lay at his
disposal. Bollandus was so struck with the success of this innovation
that he at once abandoned his own restricted ideas, and adopted the more
exhaustive method of his assistant, which of course involved the
extension of the work far beyond the sixteen volumes originally
contemplated. The first two volumes appeared in 1643, and the next
three, including the "Saints of February," in 1658. About this time the
reigning Pontiff, Alexander VII., who had been the life-long friend and
patron of Bollandus, pressed upon him, an oft-repeated invitation to
visit Rome, and utilize for his work the vast stores accumulated there
and in the other libraries of Italy. Bollandus had hitherto excused
himself. In fact, he possessed already more material than he could
conveniently use. But now that larger apartments had been assigned to
him, and proper arrangements and classifications adopted in his
library--due especially to the skill of Henschenius--he felt that such a
journey would be most advantageous to his work. As, however, he could
not go in person, owing to his infirmities, which were daily increasing,
he deputed thereto Henschenius and Daniel Papebrock, a young assistant
lately added to the Company, and destined to spend fifty-five years in
its service. The history of that literary journey is well worth reading.
The reader, curious on such points, will find it in the "Life of
Bollandus," prefixed to the first volume of the "March Saints," chap.
xiii.--xx. Still more interesting, were it printed, would be the diary
of his journey kept by Papebrock, now preserved in the Burgundy Library
at Brussels, and numbered 17,672. Twenty-nine months were spent in this
journey, from the middle of 1659 to the end of 1661. Bollandus
accompanied his disciples as far as Cologne, where they were received
with almost royal honours. After parting with their master, his
followers proceeded up the Rhine and through Southern Germany, making a
very thorough examination of the libraries, to all of which free access
was given; the very Protestant town of Nuremberg being most forward to
honour the literary travellers, while the President of the Lutheran
Consistory assisted them even with his purse. Entering Italy by way of
Trent, they arrived at Venice towards the end of October, where they
found the first rich store of Greek manuscripts, and whence also they
despatched by sea to Bollandus the first fruits of their toil. From
Venice they made a thorough examination of the libraries of North-east
Italy, at Vicenza, Verona, Padua, Bologna; whence they turned aside to
visit Ravenna, walking thither one winter's day, November 18--a journey
of thirty miles--and Henschenius, be it observed, was now sixty years of
age.[8] They spent the greater part of the year 1661 at Rome, at
Naples--where the blood and relics of St. Januarius were specially
exhibited to them, an honour only conferred on kings and their
ambassadors--and amid the rich libraries of the numerous abbeys of
Southern Italy. But even when absent from Rome their work there went on
apace. They enjoyed the friendship of some wealthy merchants from their
own land, who liberally supplied them with money, enabling them to
employ five or six scribes to copy the manuscripts they selected; while
the patronage of two eminent scholars, even yet celebrated in the world
of letters, Lucas Holstenius and Ferdinand Ughelli, backed by the still
more powerful aid of the Pope, placed every library at their command.
The Pope, indeed, went so far as to remove, in their case, every
anathema forbidding the removal of books or manuscripts from the
libraries. Lucas Holstenius, in his boyhood a Lutheran, in his later age
an agent in the conversion of Queen Christina of Sweden, and one of the
greatest among the giants of the black-letter learning of the age, rated
the Bollandists and their work so highly that, at his decease, which
took place while they were in Rome, he used their ministry alone in
receiving the last sacraments of the Roman Church. Encouraged and
supported thus, the Bollandists economized and utilized every moment.
They were in the habit of rising before day to say their sacred offices;
and then prosecuted, with their secretaries, their loved work till ten
or eleven o'clock at night. When leaving Rome they were enabled
therefore to send to Bollandus, by sea, a second consignment of three
chests of manuscripts, in addition to a large store which they carried
home themselves.
On their return journey they visited Florence and Milan, spending more
than half a year in these libraries, and then proceeded through France
to Paris, where they met scholars like Du Cange, Combefis, and Labbe.
They finally arrived at home December 21, 1661, to find Bollandus in a
very precarious state of health, which terminated in his death in 1665.
The life of Bolland is a type of the lives led by all his disciples and
successors. Devout, retired, studious, they gave themselves up,
generation after generation, to their appointed task, the elders
continually assuming to themselves one or two younger assistants, so as
to preserve their traditions unimpaired. And what a work was theirs! How
it dwarfed all modern publications! Bollandus worked at eight of those
folios, Henschenius at twenty-four, Papebrock at nineteen, Janningus his
successor at thirteen; and so the work went on, aided by a subsidy from
the Imperial House of Austria, till the suppression of the Jesuits,
which was followed soon after by the dissolution of the Bollandists in
1788. Their library became then an object of desire to many foreigners,
who would undoubtedly have purchased it, had it not been for the
opposition of the local government, and of several Belgian abbeys. It
was finally bought by Godfrey Hermans, a Præmonstratensian abbat, under
whose auspices the publication of the work continued for seven years
longer, till, on the outburst of the wars of the French Revolution, the
library was dispersed, part burnt, part hidden, part hurried into
Westphalia. At length, after various chances, a great part of the
manuscripts was obtained for the ancient library of the House of
Burgundy, now forming part of the Royal Library at Brussels, while
others of them were reclaimed for the library of the New Bollandists at
Louvain, where the work is now carried on. After the dissolution of the
old Company, two attempts at least, one in 1801 and the other in
1810--this last under the all-powerful patronage of Napoleon--were made,
though without success, to revive the work. Better fortune attended a
proposal made in 1838 by four members of the Jesuit Society--viz., J. B.
Boone, J. Vandermocre, P. Coppens, and J. van Hecke. Since that time the
publication of the volumes has steadily proceeded; we may even hope that
the progress of the work in the future will be still more rapid, as the
Company has lately added to its ranks P. C. de Smedt, one of the most
learned and laborious ecclesiastical historians in the Roman
Communion.[9]
After this sketch of the history of the Bollandists, which the literary
student can easily supplement from the various memoirs of deceased
members scattered through the volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum," we
proceed to a consideration of the results of labours so long, so varied,
and so strenuous. We shall now describe the plan of the work, the helps
all too little known towards the effective use thereof, and then offer
some specimens illustrating its critical value. When an ordinary reader
takes up a volume of the "Acta Sanctorum,"' he is very apt to find
himself utterly at sea. The very pagination is puzzling, two distinct
kinds being used in all of the volumes, and even three in some. Then
again lists, indexes, dissertations, acts of Saints, seem mingled
indiscriminately. This apparent confusion, however, is all on the
surface, as the reader will at once see, if he take the trouble to read
the second chapter of the general preface prefixed to the first volume
of the "January Saints,"' where the plan of the work is elaborately set
forth. Let us briefly analyze a volume. The daily order of the Roman
martyrology was taken as the basis of Bolland's scheme. Our author first
of all arranged the saints of each day in chronological order,
discussing them accordingly. A list of the names belonging to it is
prefixed to the portion of the volume devoted to each separate day, so
that one can see at a glance the lives belonging to that day and the
order in which they are taken. A list then follows of those rejected or
postponed to other days. Next come prefaces, prolegomena, and "previous
dissertations," examining the lives, actions, and miracles of the
Saints, authorship and history of the manuscripts, and other literary
and historical questions. Then appear the lives of the Saints in the
original language, if Latin; if not, then a Latin version is given;
while of the Greek _menologion_, which the Bollandists discovered during
their Roman journey, we have both the Greek original and a Latin
translation. Appended to the lives are annotations, explaining any
difficulties therein; while no less than five or six indexes adorn each
volume: the first an alphabetical list of Saints discussed; the second
chronological; the third historical; the fourth topographical; the fifth
an onomasticon, or glossary; the sixth moral or dialectic, suggesting
topics for preachers.
Prefixed to each volume will be found a dedication to some of the
numerous patrons of the Bollandists, followed by an account of the life
and labours of any of their Company who had died since their last
publication. Thus, opening the first volume for March, we find, in
order, a dedication to the reigning Pope, Clement IX; the life of
Bollandus; an alphabetical index of all the Saints celebrated during the
first eight days of March; a chronological list of Saints discussed
under the head of March 1; the lives of Saints, including the Greek ones
discovered by Henschenius during his Italian tour, ranged under their
various natal days, followed by five indexes as already described. But,
the reader may well ask, is there no general index, no handy means of
steering one's way through this vast mass of erudition, without
consulting each one of those fifty or sixty volumes? Without such an
apparatus, indeed, this giant undertaking would be largely in vain; but
here again the forethought of Bollandus from the very outset of his
enterprise made provision for a general index, which was at last
published at Paris, in 1875. We possess also in Potthast's "Bibliotheca
Historica Medii Aevi," a most valuable guide through the mazes of the
"Acta Sanctorum," while for a very complete analysis of every volume,
joined with a lucid explanation of any changes in arrangement, we may
consult De Backer's "Bibliothèque des Ecrivains de la Compagnie de
Jésus," t. v., under the name "Bollandus."
But some may say, what is the use of consulting these volumes? Are they
not simply gigantic monuments of misplaced and misapplied human
industry, gathering up every wretched nursery tale and village
superstition, and transmitting them to future ages? Such certainly has
been the verdict of some who knew only the backs of the books, or who at
farthest had opened by chance upon some passage where--true to their
rule which compelled them to print their manuscripts as they found
them--the Bollandists have recorded the legendary stories of the Middle
Ages. Yet even for an age which searches diligently, as after hid
treasure, for the old folk-lore, the nursery rhymes, the popular songs
and legends of Scandinavia, Germany, and Greece, the legends of mediæval
Christendom might surely prove interesting. But I regard the "Acta
Sanctorum" as specially valuable for mediæval history, secular as well
as ecclesiastical, simply because the authors--having had unrivalled
opportunities of obtaining or copying documents--printed their
authorities as they found them; and thus preserves for us a mine of
historical material which otherwise would have perished in the French
Revolution and its subsequent wars. Yet it is very strange how little
this mine has been worked. We must suppose indeed that it was simply due
to the want of the helps enumerated above--all of which have come into
existence within the last twenty-five years--that neither of our own
great historians who have dealt with the Middle Ages, Gibbon or Hallam,
have, as far as we have been able to discover, ever consulted them.