FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[6]We have received this article from a valued correspondent, whose name, for obvious reasons, is not given.—Ed.[7]The eve of Courban Beiram.

[6]We have received this article from a valued correspondent, whose name, for obvious reasons, is not given.—Ed.

[7]The eve of Courban Beiram.

The majority of educated people have, from time to time, in the course of their historical reading, come across some mention of the "Acta Sanctorum," or "Lives of the Saints;" while but few know anything as to the contents, or authorship, or history of that work. Yet it is a very great, nay a stupendous monument of what human industry, steadily directed for ages towards one point, can effect. Industry, directed for ages, I have said—an expression, which to some must seem almost like a misprint, but which is quite justified by facts, since the first volume issued by the company of the Bollandists, is dated Antwerp, 1643; and the last, Paris,A.D.1875. Two hundred and forty years have thus elapsed, and yet the work is not concluded. Indeed, as it has taken well-nigh two centuries and a half to narrate the lives of the Saints commemorated in the first ten months of the year, it may easily happen that the bones of the present generation will all be mingled with the dust, before those Saints be reached who are celebrated on the 31st of December. Some indeed—prejudiced by the very name "Acta Sanctorum"—may be inclined to turn away, with a contempt bred of ignorance, from the whole subject. But if it were only as a mental and intellectual tonic the contemplation of these sixty stately folios, embracing about a thousand pages each, would be a most healthy exercise for the men of this age. This is the halcyon period of primers, introductions, handbooks, manuals. "Knowledge made Easy" is the cry on every side. We take our mental pabulum just as we take Liebig's essence of beef, in a very concentrated form, or as homœopathists imbibe their medicine, in the shape of globules. I do not desire, however, to say one word against such publications. The great scholars of the seventeenth century, the Bollandists, Casaubon, Fabricius, ValesiusBaluze, D'Achery, Mabillon, Combefis, Vossius, Canisius, shut up their learning in immense folios, which failed to reach the masses as our primers and handbooks do, penetrating the darkness and diffusing knowledge in regions inaccessible to their more ponderous brethren. But at the same time their majestic tomes stand as everlasting protests on behalf of real and learned inquiry, of accurate, painstaking, and often most critical research into the sources whence history, if worth anything, must be drawn.

I propose in this paper to give an account of the origin, progress, contents, and value of the work of the Bollandists, regarded as the vastest repertory of original material for the history of mediæval times. This immense series is popularly known either as the "Acta Sanctorum" or the Bollandists. The former is the proper designation. The latter, however, will suit best as the peg on which we shall hang our narrative. John Bolland, or Joannes Bollandus as it is in Latin, was the name of the founder of a Company which, more fortunate than most literary clubs, has lasted well-nigh three centuries. To him must be ascribed the honour of initiating the work, drawing the lines and laying the foundations of a building which has not yet been completed. That work was one often contemplated but never undertaken on the same exhaustive principles. Clement, the reputed disciple of the Apostles Peter and Paul, is reported—in the "Liber Pontificalis" or "Lives of the Popes;" dating from the early years of the sixth century—to have made provision for preserving the "Acts of the Martyrs." Apocryphal as this account seems, yet the honest reader of Eusebius must confess that the idea was no novel one in the second century, as is manifest from the well-known letter narrating the sufferings of the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne. Space would now fail us to trace the development of hagiography in the Church. Let it suffice to say that century after century, as it slowly rolled by, contributed its quota both in east and west. In the east even an emperor, Basil, gave his name to a Greek martyrology; while in both west and east the writings of Metaphrastes, Mombritius, Surius, Lipomanus, and Baronius, embalmed abundant legends in many a portly volume. Still the mind of a certain Heribert Rosweid, a professor at Douai, a Jesuit and an enthusiastic antiquarian, was not satisfied. Rosweid was a typical instance of those Jesuits, learned and devout, who at a great crisis in the battle restored the fallen fortunes of the Church of Rome. As the original idea of the "Acta Sanctorum" is due to him, we may be pardoned in giving a brief sketch of his career, though he was not in strictness a member of the Bollandist Company.

Rosweid was born at Utrecht, in 1569, and entered the Society of Jesus 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 diedA.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 directionsfor 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 otherenjoyment 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 preservedin 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 Greekmenologion, 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 undertheir 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.

Yet the very titles of even a few out of the very many critical dissertations appended to the "Lives of the Saints," will show how very varied and how very valuable were the purely historical labours of the Bollandists. Thus opening the first volume of the "Thesaurus Antiquitatis," a collection of the critical treatises scattered through the volumes published prior to 1750, the following titles strike the eye:—"Dissertations on the Byzantine historian Theophanes," on the "Ancient Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs," on the "DiplomaticArt"—a discussion which elicited the famous treatise of Mabillon, "De Re Diplomatica," laying down the true principles for distinguishing false documents from true—on certain mediæval "Itineraries in Palestine," on the "Patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem," on the "Bishops of Milan to the year 1261," on the "Mediæval Kings of Majorca" and no less than three treatises on the "Chronology of the early Merovingian and other French Kings." Let us take for instance these last mentioned essays on the early French kings. In them we find the Bollandists discovering a king of France, Dagobert II., whose romantic history, banishment to Ireland, restoration to his kingdom by the instrumentality of Archbishop Wilfrid, of York, and tragic death, had till their investigations lain hidden from every historian. As soon, indeed, as they had brought this obscure episode to light, and had elaborately traced the genealogy of the Merovingians, their claim to the discovery was disputed by Hadr. Valesius, the historiographer to the French Court, who was of course jealous that any one else should know more about the origins of the French monarchy than he did. His pretension, however, was easily refuted by Henschenius, who showed that he had himself discovered this derelict king twelve years before Valesius turned his thoughts to the subject, having published in 1654 a dissertation upon him distinct from those embodied in the "Acta Sanctorum." Hallam, in his "History of the Middle Ages," introduces this king, and notices that his history had escaped all historians till discovered by some learned men in the seventeenth century, for it is in this vague way he alludes to the Bollandists—and then refers for his authority to Sismondi, who in turn knows nothing of the Bollandists' share in the discovery, but attributes it to Mabillon when treating of the "Acts of the Benedictine Saints." Let us again take up Hallam, and we shall in vain search for notices of the kings of Majorca, a branch of the Royal family of Arragon, who reigned over the Balearic Islands in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Let any one, however, desirous of a picture of the domestic life of sovereigns during the Middle Ages, take up Papebrock's treatise on the "Palatine Laws" of James II., King of Majorca,A.D.1324, where he will see depicted—all the more minutely because from the size of his principality the king had no other outlet for his energy—the ritual of a mediæval Court, illustrated, too, with pictures drawn from the original manuscript. In this document are laid down with painful minuteness, the duties of every official from the chancellor and the major-domo to the lowest scullions and grooms, including butlers, cooks, blacksmiths, musicians, scribes, physicians, surgeons, chaplains, choir-men, and chamberlains. Remote, too, as these kings of Majorca and their elaborate ceremonial may seem to be from the England of to-day, a careful study of these "Palace Laws" would seem to indicate either that our own CourtRitual was derived from it, or else that both are deduced from one common stock. The point of contact, however, between our own Court etiquette and that of Majorca is not so very hard to find. The kings of Arragon, acting on the usual principle, might is right, devoured the inheritance of their kinsmen, which lay so tantalizingly close to their own shores, during the lifetime of the worthy legislator, James II. But as Greece led captive her conqueror, Rome, so too Arragon, though superior in brute force, bowed to the genius of Majorca, at least on points of courtly details, and adopteden blocthe laws of James II., which were published as his own by Peter IV., King of Arragon,A.D.1344. Thence they passed over to the United Kingdom of Castile and Arragon, and so may have easily found their way to England; for surely, if a naturally ceremonious people like the Spaniards needed instruction on such matters from the Majorcans, how much more must colder northerns like ourselves. This incident illustrates the special opportunities possessed by the Bollandists for consulting ancient documents, which otherwise would most probably have been lost for ever. Their manuscript of those Majorcan laws seems to have been originally the property of the legislator himself. When King James was dispossessed of his kingdom, he fled to Philip VI. of France, seeking redress, and bearing with him a splendid copy of his laws as a present, which his son and successor John in turn presented to Philip, Duke of Burgundy. After lying there a century it found its way to Flanders, in the train of a Duchess of Burgundy, and thus finally came into the possession of the Antwerp Jesuits.

Again, the study of the Bollandists throws light upon the past history and present state of Palestine. Thus the indefatigable Papebrock, equally at home in the most various kinds of learning, discusses the history of the Bishops and Patriarchs of Jerusalem, in a tract preliminary to the third volume for May. But, not content with a subject so wide, he branches off to treat of divers other questions relating to Oriental history, such as the Essenes and the origin of Monasticism, the Saracenic persecution of the Eastern Christians, and the introduction of the Arabic notation into Europe. On this last head the Bollandists anticipate some modern speculations.[10]He maintains, on the authority of a Greek manuscript in the Vatican, written by an Eastern monk, Maximus Planudes, about 1270, that, while the Arabs derived their notation from the Brahmins of India, aboutA.D.200, they only introduced it into Eastern Europe so late as the thirteenth century. Upon the geography of Palestine again they give us information. All modern works of travel or survey dealing with the Holy Land, make frequent reference to the records left us by men like Eusebius and Jerome, and the itineraries of the "BordeauxPilgrim," of Bishop Arculf,A.D., 700, Benjamin of Tudela,A.D.1163, and others. In the second volume for May, we have presented to us two itineraries, one of which seems to have escaped general notice. One is the record of Antoninus Martyr, a traveller in the seventh century. This is well known and often quoted. The other is the diary of a Greek priest, Joannes Phocas, describing "the castles and cities from Antioch to Jerusalem, together with the holy places of Syria, Phœnicia, and Palestine," as they were seen by him in the year 1185. This manuscript, first published in the "Acta Sanctorum," was discovered in the island of Chios, by Leo Allatius, afterwards librarian of the Vatican. It is very rich in interesting details concerning the state of Palestine and Christian tradition in the twelfth century. The Bollandists again were the first to bring prominently forward in the last volume of June the "Ancient Roman Calendar of Polemeus Silvius." This seems to have been a combined calendar and diary, kept by some citizen of Rome in the middle of the fifth century. It records from day to day the state of the weather, the direction of the wind, the birthdays of eminent characters in history, poets like Virgil, orators like Cicero, emperors like Vespasian and Julian; and is at the same time most important as showing the large intermixture of heathen ideas and fashions which still continued paramount in Rome a century and a half after the triumph of Christianity.

The new Bollandists, indeed, do not produce such exhaustive monographs as their predecessors did; but we cannot join in the verdict of the writer in the new issue of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," who tells us that the continuation is much inferior to the original work. Some of their articles manifest a critical acquaintance with the latest modern research, as, for instance, their dissertation on the Homerite Martyrs and the Jewish Homerite kingdom of Southern Arabia, wherein they display their knowledge of the work done by the great Orientalists of England and Germany, while in their history of St. Rose, of Lima,A.D.1617, they celebrate the only American who was ever canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, and, at the same time, give us a fearful picture of the austerities to which fanaticism can lead its victims. Perhaps to some readers one of the most interesting points about this great work, when viewed in the light of modern history, will be the complete change of front which it exhibits on one of the test questions about Papal Infallibility. One of the great difficulties in the path of this doctrine is the case of Liberius, Pope in the middle of the fourth century. He is accused—and to ordinary minds the accusation seems just—of having signed an Arian formula, of having communicated with the Arians, and of having anathematized St. Athanasius. He stood firm for a while, but was exiled by the Emperor. During his absence Felix II. was chosen Pope. Liberius,after a time was permitted to return; whereupon the spectacle, so often afterwards repeated, was witnessed of two Popes competing for the Papal throne. Felix, however he may have fared in life, has fairly surpassed his opponent in death, since Felix appears in the Roman Martyrology as a Saint and a Martyr under the date of July 29; while Liberius is not admitted therein even as a Confessor. This would surely seem to give us every guarantee for the sanctity of Felix, and the fallibility of Liberius, as the Roman Martyrology of to-day is guaranteed by a decree of Pope Gregory XIII., issued "under the ring of the Fisherman." In this decree "all patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots, and religious orders," are bidden to use this Martyrology without addition, change, or subtraction; while any one so altering it is warned that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. The earlier Bollandists, with this awful anathema hanging over them, most loyally accepted the Roman Martyrology, and therefore most vigorously maintained, in the seventh volume for July, the heresy of Liberius, as well as the orthodoxy and saintship of Felix. But, as years rolled on, this admission was seen to be of most dangerous consequence; and so we find, in the sixth volume, for September, that Felix has become, as he still remains in current Roman historians, like Alzog, a heretic, a schismatic, and an anti-Pope, while Liberius is restored to his position as the only valid and orthodox Bishop of Rome. But then the disagreeable question arises, if this be so, what becomes of the Papal decree of Gregory XIII. issuedsub annulo piscatoris, and the anathemas appended thereto? With the merits of this controversy, however, we are, as historical students, in a very slight degree concerned; and we simply produce these facts as specimens of the riches contained in the externally unattractive volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum." Space would fail us, did we attempt to set forth at any length the contents of these volumes. Suffice it to say that even upon our English annals, which have been so thoroughly explored of late years, the records of the Bollandists would probably throw some light, discussing as they do, at great length, the lives of such English Saints as Edward the Confessor and Wilfrid of York; and yet they are not too favourably disposed towards our insular Saints, since they plainly express their opinion that our pious simplicity has filled their Acts with incredible legends and miracles, more suited to excite laughter than to promote edification.

But, doubtless, our reader is weary of our hagiographers. We must, therefore, notice briefly the controversies in which their labours involved them. Bollandus, when he died, departed amid universal regret: Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, all joined with Jesuits in regret for his death, and in prayers for his eternal peace. A few years afterwards the Society experienced the very fleeting characterof such universal popularity. During the issue of the first twelve volumes, they had steered clear of all dangerous controversies by a rigid observance of the precepts laid down by Bollandus. In discussing, however, the life of Albert, at first Bishop of Vercelli, and afterwards Papal Legate and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, Papebrock challenged the alleged antiquity of the Carmelite Order, which affected to trace itself back to Elijah the Tishbite. This piece of scepticism, brought down a storm upon his devoted head, which raged for years and involved Popes, yea even Princes and Courts, in the quarrel. Du Cange threw the shield of his vast learning over the honest criticism of the Jesuits. The Spanish Inquisition stepped forward in defence of the Carmelites; and toward the end of the seventeenth century condemned the first fourteen volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum" as dangerous to the faith. The Carmelites were very active in writing pamphlets in their own defence, wherein after the manner of the time they deal more in hard words and bad names than in sound argument. Thus the title of one of their pamphlets describes Papebrock as "the new Ishmael whose hand is against every man and every man's hand is against him." It is evident, however, that they felt the literary battle going against them, inasmuch as in 1696 they petitioned the King of Spain to impose perpetual silence upon their adversaries. As his most Catholic Majesty did not see fit to interfere, they presented a similar memorial to Pope Innocent XIII., who in 1699 imposed theclôtureupon all parties, and thus effectually terminated a battle which had raged for twenty years. Papebrock again involved himself at a later period in a controversy touching a very tender and very important point in the Roman system. In discussing the lives of some Chinese martyrs, he advocated the translation of the Liturgy into the vulgar tongue of the converts; which elicited a reply from Gueranger in his "Institutions Théologiques;" while again between the years 1729 and 1736 a pitched battle took place between the Bollandists and the Dominicans touching the genealogy of their founder, St. Dominic. All these controversies, with many other minor ones in which they were engaged, will be found summed up in an apologetic folio which the Bollandists published. In looking through it the reader will specially be struck by this instructive fact, that the bitterness and violence of the controversy were always in the inverse ratio of the importance of the points at issue. This much also must any fair mind allow: the Society of Jesus, since the days of Pascal and the "Provincial Letters," has been regarded as a synonym for dishonesty and fraud. From any such charge the student of the "Acta Sanctorum" must regard the Bollandists as free. In them we behold oftentimes a credulity which would not have found place among men who knew by experience more of the world of life and action, but,on the other hand, we find in them thorough loyalty to historical truth. They deal in no suppression of evidence; they give every side of the question. They write like men who feel, as Bollandus their founder did, that under no circumstances is it right to tell a lie. They never hesitate to avow their own convictions and predilections. They draw their own conclusions, and put their own gloss upon facts and documents; but yet they give the documents as they found them, and they enable the impartial student—working not in trammels as they did—to make a sounder and truer use of them. They display not the spirit of the mere confessor whose tone has been lowered by the stifling atmosphere of the casuistry with which he has been perpetually dealing; but, the braced soul, the hardy courage of the historical critic, who having climbed the lofty peaks of bygone centuries, has watched and noted the inevitable discovery and defeat of lies, the grandeur and beauty of truth. They were Jesuits indeed, and, like all the members of that Society, were bound, so far as possible, to sink all human affections and consecrate every thought to the work of their order. If such a sacrifice be lawful for any man, if it be permitted any thus to suppress the deepest and holiest affections which God has created, surely such a sacrifice could not have been made in the pursuance of a worthier or nobler object than the rescue from destruction, and the preservation to all ages, of the facts and documents contained in the "Acta Sanctorum."

George T. Stokes.

FOOTNOTES:[8]Henschenius was a man of great physical powers. He always delighted in walking exercise, and executed many of his literary journeys in Italy on foot, even amid the summer heats. Ten years later, when close on seventy, he walked on an emergency ten leagues in one day through the mountains and forests of the Ardennes district, and was quite fresh next day for another journey. He was a man of very full complexion. According to the medical system of the time, he indulged in blood-letting once or twice a year.[9]Since this paper was written the Bollandists have issued a prospectus of an annual publication called "Analecta Bollandiana." From this document we learn that disease and death have now reduced the company very low. De Smedt has had to retire almost as soon as elected.[10]Cf., for instance, Colebrooke's "Life and Essays," i. 309. iii. 360, 399, 474; Wœpké, "Memoir on the Propagation of Indian Cyphers in Jour. Asiatique," 1863.

[8]Henschenius was a man of great physical powers. He always delighted in walking exercise, and executed many of his literary journeys in Italy on foot, even amid the summer heats. Ten years later, when close on seventy, he walked on an emergency ten leagues in one day through the mountains and forests of the Ardennes district, and was quite fresh next day for another journey. He was a man of very full complexion. According to the medical system of the time, he indulged in blood-letting once or twice a year.

[9]Since this paper was written the Bollandists have issued a prospectus of an annual publication called "Analecta Bollandiana." From this document we learn that disease and death have now reduced the company very low. De Smedt has had to retire almost as soon as elected.

[10]Cf., for instance, Colebrooke's "Life and Essays," i. 309. iii. 360, 399, 474; Wœpké, "Memoir on the Propagation of Indian Cyphers in Jour. Asiatique," 1863.

The present difficulties between France and Madagascar, and the recent arrival of a Malagasy Embassy in this country, have made the name of the great African island a familiar one to all readers of our daily journals during the last few weeks. For some time past we have heard much of certain "French claims" upon Madagascar, and alleged "French rights" there; and since the envoys of the Malagasy sovereign are now in England seeking the friendly offices of our Government on behalf of their country, it will be well for Englishmen to endeavour to understand the merits of the dispute, and to know why they are called to take part in the controversy.

Except to a section of the English public which has for many years taken a deep interest in the religious history of the island and given liberally both men and money to enlighten it, and to a few others who are concerned in its growing trade, Madagascar is still very vaguely known to the majority of English people; and, as was lately remarked by a daily journal, its name has until recently been almost as much a mere geographical expression as that of Mesopotamia. The island has, however, certain very interesting features in its scientific aspects, and especially in some religious and social problems which have been worked out by its people during the past fifty years; and these may be briefly described before proceeding to discuss the principal subject of this article.

Looking sideways at a map of the Southern Indian Ocean, Madagascar appears to rise like a huge sea monster out of the waters. The island has a remarkably compact and regular outline; for many hundred miles its eastern shore is almost a straight line, but on its north-western side it is indented by a number of deep land-locked gulfs, which include some of the finest harbours in the world. Abouta third of its interior to the north and east is occupied by an elevated mountainous region, raised from 3,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea, and consisting of Primary rocks—granite, gneiss, and basalt—probably very ancient land, and forming during the Secondary geological epoch an island much smaller than the Madagascar of to-day. While our Oolitic and Chalk rocks were being slowly laid down under northern seas, the extensive coast plains of the island, especially on its western and southern sides, were again and again under water, and are still raised but a few hundred feet above the sea-level. From south-east to north and north-west there extends a band of extinct volcanoes, connected probably with the old craters of the Comoro Group, where, in Great Comoro, the subterranean forces are still active. All round the island runs a girdle of dense forest, varying from ten to forty miles in width, and containing fine timber and valuable gums and other vegetable wealth—a paradise for botanists, where rare orchids, the graceful traveller's-tree, the delicate lattice-leaf plant, the gorgeous flamboyant, and many other elsewhere unknown forms of life abound, and where doubtless much still awaits fuller research.

While the flora of Madagascar is remarkably abundant, its fauna is strangely limited, and contains none of the various and plentiful forms of mammalian life which make Southern and Central Africa the paradise of sportsmen. The ancient land of the island has preserved antique forms of life: many species of lemur make the forest resound with their cries; and these, with the curious and highly-specialized Aye-aye, and peculiar species of Viverridæ and Insectivora, are probably "survivals", of an old-world existence, when Madagascar was one of an archipelago of large islands, whose remains are only small islands like the Seychelles and Mascarene Groups, or coral banks and atolls like the Chagos, Amirante, and others, which are slowly disappearing beneath the ocean. Until two or three hundred years ago, the coast-plains of Madagascar were trodden by the great struthious bird, the Æpyornis, apparently the most gigantic member of the avi-fauna of the world, and whose enormous eggs probably gave rise to the stories of the Rukh of the "Arabian Nights." It will be evident, therefore, that Madagascar is full of interest as regards its scientific aspects.

When we look at the human inhabitants of the island there is also a considerable field for research, and some puzzling problems are presented. While Madagascar may be correctly termed "the greatAfricanisland" as regards its geographical position, considered ethnologically, it is rather a Malayo-Polynesian island. Though so near Africa, it has but slight connection with the continent; the customs, traditions, language, and mental and physical characteristics of its people all tend to show that their ancestors came across the Indian Ocean from the south-east of Asia. There are traces of some aboriginalpeoples in parts of the interior, but the dark and the brown Polynesians are probably both represented in the different Malagasy tribes; and although scattered somewhat thinly over an island a thousand miles long and four times as large as England and Wales, there is substantially but one language spoken throughout the whole of Madagascar. Of these people, the Hova, who occupy the central portion of the interior high-land, are the lightest in colour and the most civilized, and are probably the latest and purest Malay immigrants. Along the western coast are a number of tribes commonly grouped under the term Sàkalàva, but each having its own dialect, chief, and customs. They are nomadic in habits, keeping large herds of cattle, and are less given to agriculture than the central and eastern peoples. In the interior are found, besides the Hova, the Sihànaka, the Bétsiléo, and the Bàra; in the eastern forests are the Tanàla, and on the eastern coast are the Bétsimisàraka, Tamòro, Taisàka, and other allied peoples.

From a remote period the various Malagasy tribes seem to have retained their own independence of each other, no one tribe having any great superiority; but about two hundred years ago a warlike south-western tribe called Sàkalàva conquered all the others on the west coast, and formed two powerful kingdoms, which exacted tribute also from some of the interior peoples. Towards the commencement of the present century, however, the Hova became predominant; having conquered the interior and eastern tribes, they were also enabled by friendship with England to subdue the Sàkalàva, and by the year 1824 King Radàma I. had established his authority over the whole of Madagascar except a portion of the south-west coast.

A little earlier than the date last named—viz., in 1820—a Protestant mission was commenced in the interior of the island at the capital city, Antanànarivo. This was with the full approval of the king, who was a kind of Malagasy Peter the Great, and ardently desired that his people should be enlightened. A small body of earnest men sent out by the London Missionary Society did a great work during the fifteen years they were allowed to labour in the central provinces. They reduced the beautiful and musical Malagasy language to a written form; they gave the people the beginnings of a native literature, and a complete version of the Holy Scriptures, and founded several Christian churches. Many of the useful arts were also taught by the missionary artisans; and to all appearance Christianity and civilization seemed likely soon to prevail throughout the country.

But the accession of Queen Ranavàlona I. in 1828, and, still more, her proclamation of 1835 denouncing Christian teaching, dispelled these pleasing anticipations. A severe persecution of Christianity ensued, which, however, utterly failed to prevent its progress, and only served to show in a remarkable manner the faith and courageof the native Christians, of whom at least two hundred were put to death. The political state of the country was also very deplorable during the queen's reign; almost all foreigners were excluded, and for some years even foreign commerce was forbidden.

On the queen's death, in 1861, the island was reopened to trade and to Christian teaching, both of which have greatly progressed since that time, especially during the reign of the present sovereign, who made a public profession of Christianity at her accession in 1868. By the advice and with the co-operation of her able Prime Minister numerous wise and enlightened measures have been passed for the better government of the country; idolatry has entirely passed away from the central provinces; education and civilization have been making rapid advances; and all who hope for human progress have rejoiced to see how the Malagasy have been gradually rising to the position of a civilized and Christian people.

The present year has, however, brought a dark cloud over the bright prospects which have been opening up for Madagascar. Foreign aggression on the independence of the country is threatened on the part of France, and a variety of so-called "claims" have been put forward to justify interference with the Malagasy, and alleged "rights" are urged to large portions of their territory.

It is not perfectly clear why the present time has been chosen for this recent ebullition of French feeling, since, if any French rights ever existed to any portion of Madagascar, they might have been as justly (or unjustly) urged for the last forty years as now. Some three or four minor matters have no doubt been made the ostensible pretext,[11]but the real reason is doubtless the same as that which has led to French attempts to obtain territory in Tongking, in the Congo Valley, in the Gulf of Aden, and in Eastern Polynesia, viz., a desire to retrieve abroad their loss of influence in Europe; and especially to heal the Frenchamour propre, sorely wounded by their having allowed England to settle alone the Egyptian difficulty.

It is much to be wished that some definite and authoritative statement could be obtained from French statesmen or writers as to the exact claims now put forward and their justification, with some slight concession to the request of outsiders for reason and argument. As it is, almost every French newspaper seems to have a theory of its own, and we read a good deal about "our ancient rights," and "our acknowledged claims," together with similar vague and rather grandiose language. As far as can be ascertained, four different theories seem to be held:—(1) Some French writers speak of their "ancient rights," as if the various utter failures of theirnation to retain any military post in Madagascar in the 17th and 18th centuries were to be urged as giving rights of possession.

(2) Others talk about "the treaties of 1841" with two rebellious Sàkalàva tribes as an ample justification of their present action.

(3) Others, again, refer to the repudiated and abandoned "Lambert treaty" of 1862 as, somehow or other, still giving the French a hold upon Madagascar. And (4) during the last few days we have been gravely informed that "France will insist upon carrying out the treaty of 1868," which gives no right in Madagascar to France beyond that given to every nation with whom a treaty has been made, and which says not one word about any French protectorate.[12]

It will be necessary to examine these four points a little in detail.

1. Of what value are "ancient French rights" in Madagascar? These do not rest upondiscoveryof the country, or prior occupation of it, since almost every writer, French, English, or German, agrees that the Portuguese, in 1506, were the first Europeans to land on the island. They retained some kind of connection with Madagascar for many years; and so did the Dutch, for a shorter period, in the early part of the seventeenth century; and the English also had a small colony on the south-west side of the island before any French attempts were made at colonization. Three European nations therefore preceded the French in Madagascar.

During the seventeenth century, from 1643 to 1672, repeated efforts were made by the French to maintain a hold on three or four points of the east coast of the island. But these were not colonies, and were so utterly mismanaged that eventually the French were driven out by the exasperated inhabitants; and after less than thirty years' intermittent occupation of these positions, the country was abandoned by them altogether for more than seventy years.[13]In the latter part of the eighteenth century fresh attempts were made (after 1745), but with little better result; one post after another was relinquished; so that towards the beginning of the present century the only use made of Madagascar by the French was for the slave-trade, and the maintenance of two or three trading stations for supplying oxen to the Mascarene Islands.[14]In 1810 the capture of Mauritius and Bourbon by the British gave a decisive blow to French predominance in the Southern Indian Ocean; their two or three posts on the east coast were occupied by English troops, and were by us given over to Radàma I., who had succeededin making himself supreme over the greater portion of the island. The French eventually seized the little island of Ste. Marie's, off the eastern coast, but retained not a foot of soil upon the mainland; and so ended, it might have been supposed, their "ancient rights" in Madagascar.[15]

It is, however, quite unnecessary to dwell further on this point, as the recognition by the French, in their treaty with Radàma II., of that prince asKing of Madagascarwas a sufficient renunciation of their ancient pretensions. This is indeed admitted by French writers. M. Galos, writing in theRevue des Deux Mondes(Oct. 1863, p. 700), says, speaking of the treaty of Sept. 2, 1861:—

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