Thomas Joseph Shahan

“ Merovingian, Lombard, and Anglo-Saxon scripts offer each their own Abbreviations, not to speak of the unique scotica manus or libri scottice scripti (Irish hand, or books written in the medieval Irish hand) . Eventually such productive centres of technical manuscripts as the Papal Chancery, the theological schools of Paris and Oxford, and the civil-law school of Bologna set the standards of Abbreviations for all Europe. The medieval manuscripts abound in Abbreviations, owing in part to the abandonment of the uncial, or quasi-uncial, and the almost universal use of the cursive, hand. ”

“ Though the work contains no little unreliable material, it is a unique and rich source of information concerning the buildings, inscriptions, manners, and religious customs of Ravenna in the ninth century. The author shows a strong bias and loses no opportunity of exalting as traditional the independence or "autocephalia" of the church of Ravenna as against the legitimate authority of the Holy See. For his time he is a kind of polemical Gallican. His work bears also traces of personal vanity. In his efforts to be erudite he often falls into unpardonable errors. ”

“ The vernacular of the people is the Croatian tongue. Agram possesses a university for the southern Slavs, opened in 1874, owing chiefly to the endeavours and sacrifices of Bishop Strossmayer of Djakovár. There are also an archiepiscopal seminary and a college for boys, besides a Greek Catholic seminary and gymnasium. Among the ecclesiastical institutes of Agram is the "Piarum summarum præfectura", a fund of about one million dollars (1882) , the interest of which is devoted to the support of establishments of charity and beneficence. ”

“ Bulgaria was incorporated with the Byzantine patriarchate, and in 870 the Latin missionaries were expelled. Henceforth Greek metropolitans preside in Achrida; it was made the political capital of the Bulgarian kingdom and profited by the tenth- century conquests of its warlike rulers so that it became the metropolitan of several Greek dioceses in the newly conquered territories in Macedonia, Thessaly, and Thrace. Bulgaria fell unavoidably within the range of the Photian schism, and so, from the end of the ninth century, the diocese of Achrida was lost to Western and papal influences. ”

“ Absalon of Lund, also known as Axel, a famous Danish prelate, b. in 1128, at Finnestoë in Seeland; d. 21 March, 1201, in the Benedictine monastery of Soröe (Sora) founded by his father. He was a graduate of the University of Paris, and taught for a while in the school of Ste. Geneviève. In 1158 he was made Bishop of Roskilde, and in 1178 Archbishop of Lund, Primate of Denmark and Sweden, and eventually Papal Legate. In this capacity he laboured zealously for the final extirpation of paganism in the Scandinavian world, notably on the Isle of Rügen, its last stronghold. ”

“ The Emperor Henry VI violently intruded his own venal choice into the see, and Albert journeyed to Rome to appeal to Celestine III, who ordained him deacon, created him cardinal, and sent him away with gifts of great value and a letter of recommendation to the Archbishop of Rheims, where he was ordained priest and consecrated bishop. ”

“ The sudden death of Arius was looked on by contemporary Catholics as an answer to the prayers of the good bishop, whom Theodoret (Hist. Eccl., I, 3) calls an "apostolic" man. He did not long survive this tragic event.—Alexander of Hierapolis (Euphratensis) ,an unbending opponent of St. Cyril in the Council of Ephesus (431) , and an equally stanch advocate of Nestorius. Even when John of Antioch and most of the Oriental bishops yielded, and a general reconciliation was effected, Alexander stood out against "the abomination of Egypt". ”

“ A very useful work for all Latin abbreviations is that of Capelli, Dizionario delle abbreviature latine ed italiane (Milan, 1900) ; it is written mostly in Latin and describes all the abbreviations ordinarily used in Latin and Italian documents, civil or ecclesiastical. Other valuable works dealing specifically with abbreviations in pontifical documents are De la Brana, Signos y Abbreviaturas que se uman en los documentos pontificus (Leon, 1884) ”

“ When urged by Clement VII to publish his works, he is said, by the Augustinian Thomas de Herrera, to have replied that he feared to contradict famous and holy men by his exposition of Scripture. The Pope replied that human respect should not deter him ”

“ Acton, John, a English canonist, after 1329 canon of Lincoln; d. 1350. His name is spelled variously, Achedune, de Athona, Aton, Eaton; Maitland and Stubbs write Ayton. He was a pupil of John Stratford (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury) , and is declared by Maitland (p. 98) to be "one of the three English canonists who after the earliest years of the thirteenth century wrote books that met with any success". ”

“ His chief title to fame lies in the fact that we owe to him the composition by Saint Bede of his "Ecclesiastical History of the English". The latter gratefully records the fact in the letter he sent to Albinus with a copy of the work, and at greater length in his letter to King Ceolwulf, both of which serve as a preface to the narrative. He calls Albinus a most learned man in all the sciences (Hist. Ecc. Angl., v, 20) , and says that to his instigation and help the above-mentioned work was chiefly owing (auctor ante omnes atque adjutor opusculi hujus) . ”

“ He is the continuator of Procopius, whom he imitates in form and also in the abundance of attractive episodes. Agathias, it has been said, is a poet and a rhetorician, while Procopius is a soldier and a statesman. The former loves to give free play to his imagination, and his pages abound in philosophic reflection. He is able and reliable, though he gathered his information from eye- witnesses, and not, as Procopius, in the exercise of high military and political offices. He delights in depicting the manners, customs, and religion of the foreign peoples of whom he writes ”

“ His discourses cast a sad light on the wretched conditions of contemporary Attica, as does his iambic elegy "On the City of Athens", described as "the first and only surviving lamentation for the decay and ruin of the ancient and illustrious city." Of his letters 180 have reached us. His character is described as energetic, but gentle and upright. He was too much a Byzantine to denounce the imperial authority in the person of the cruel Andronicus, while that monster lived ”

“ Wattenbach says that he may have occasionally used good historical material; in general he is the panegyrist of an ideal Christian military service, a brilliant painter of scenes and events; his work and others like it served as bugle calls to summon to the Orient new multitudes of devoted soldiers of Christ. ”

“ Alexander, Eventulus, and Theodulus was discovered near Rome, at the spot where the above mentioned tradition declares the Pope to have been martyred. According to some archæologists, this Alexander is identical with the Pope, and this ancient and important tomb marks the actual site of the Pope's martyrdom. ”

“ Akominatos, Michael, d. 1215; and Nicetas, d. 1206; also known as Choniates, from their native city, Chonia (the Colossæ of St. Paul) , two famous Greeks of the later Byzantine period. While studying at Constantinople by their father's wish, Michael acted as tutor to his younger brother Nicetas. Michael became a priest; Nicetas studied history and jurisprudence, in addition to theology, and rose to high honors in the imperial service. ”

“ Adeodatus (672–676) , Saint, Pope, a monk of the Roman cloister of St. Erasmus on the Cœlian Hill. He was active in the perfection of monastic discipline and in the repression of the Monothelite heresy. Little else is known of him. ”

“ Pius V to Philip II of Spain, made Cardinal by the same pope, whom he assisted on his deathbed.—Ottavio (the elder) , b. at Naples, 1560; d. 1612; filled various offices under Sixtus V, Gregory XIV, and Clement VIII, was Cardinal-legate in the Campagna and at Avignon, and was instrumental in the conversion of Henri IV. Leo XI made him Archbishop of Naples (1605) .—Ottavio (the younger) , of the family of the dukes of Atri, b. at Naples, 1608; d. at Rome, 1674. He was made Cardinal in 1654 by Innocent IX, and legate at Viterbo and in Romagna, where he checked the ravages of the banditti. ”

“ D'Achéry collected the historical materials for the great work known as "Acta Ordinis S. Benedicti" but Mabillon added so much to it in the way of prefaces, notes, and "excursus" that it is justly accounted as his work. D'Achéry was the soul of the noble Maurist movement, and a type of the medieval Benedictine, humble and self-sacrificing, virtuous and learned. ”

“ Agria (Erlau, Eger, Jager) , an archiepiseopal see of Hungary, founded in 1009, and made an archdiocese in 1804, by Pius VII. It has 633,804 Latin Catholics; 81,217 Greek Catholics, and 503,107 partly Greek Schismatics and partly Protestants, with a sprinkling of Jews. The parishes number 200, and there are 342 secular clergy, and 51 religious. The vernacular tongue is largely Hungarian and German, but Croat, Slavonic, and Armenian are also spoken. ”

“ In that of 1838 the Fathers requested Gregory XVI to add "Immaculate" to the word "Conception" in the preface of the Mass for that feast of the Blessed Virgin, which he did. In the council of 1850 many modern errors were condemned, rationalism, pantheism, communism, also the arbitrary interpretation of the Scriptures. ”

“ He was also an enlightened patron of art and artists, helped to reconcile with the Church the sculptor and art-historian Winckelmann, built the Villa Albani (1760) and filled it with treasures of antique sculpture and other precious relics of Greek and Roman art (dispersed by Napoleon I; the famous Antinous is there still) . ”

“ In this council the bishops warned him that unless he retracted his errors, confessed the Catholic faith, and reformed his life, they would refuse to look on him as a bishop. In 633, the patriarch Cyrus held a council in favour of the Monothelites, with which closed the series of these deliberative meetings of the ancient Church of Egypt. ”

“ They multiplied with time, and were never so numerous as on the eve of the discovery of printing; many of the early printed books offer this peculiarity, together with other characteristics of the manuscript page. The development of printing brought about the abandonment of many Abbreviations, while it suggested and introduced new ones—a process also favoured by the growth of ecclesiastical legislation, the creation of new offices, etc. ”

“ But Boniface fell in battle near Rimini, and Aëtius retired for some time to the Hunnish camp in Pannonia. In 433 he returned to power at Ravenna, and for the remaining seventeen years of the joint reign of Placidia and Valentinian III was, as before, the ruling spirit of the Western Empire. The peace that he maintained through his alliances with the Huns and the Alani and through a treaty with the Ostrogoths, was broken (450) by the invasion of Attila. ”

“ Alzog, Johann Baptist, a Catholic church historian, born 29 June, 1808, at Ohlau in Silesia; died 1 March, 1878, at Freiburg (Breisgau) . He was educated at Breslau and Bonn, ordained a priest in 1834, made doctor of theology by the University of Munich in 1835, and appointed professor at Posen in 1836. ”

“ There was less medieval abbreviation in the text of books much used on public occasions, e.g. missals, antiphonaries, bibles; in one way or another the needs of students seem to have been the chief cause of the majority of medieval Abbreviations. The means of abbreviation were usually full points or dots (mostly in Roman antiquity) , the semicolon (eventually conventionalized) , lines (horizontal, perpendicular, oblong, wavy curves, and commas) . Vowel-sounds were frequently written not after, but over, the consonants. Certain letters, like p and q, that occur with extreme frequency, e.g. ”

“ Albert of Stade, a chronicler of the thirteenth century. He was born before the close of the twelfth century. It is known that he became abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Stade (near Hamburg) in 1232. Failing to change (1236) the rule of St. Benedict in his abbey to that of the Cistercians, he resigned his office and in 1240 joined the Franciscans. In the same year he commenced to compile his chronicle, which begins with the creation of the world and comes down to 1256 ”

“ The population of Aden, now a strongly fortified place, is about 40,000, Arabs, Somalis, Jews, and Indians, besides the British garrison and officials. The large and important harbour furnishes one of the principal coaling-stations of the British Empire. Being a free port, it has become the chief trading-centre for all the neighbouring countries. ”

“ Michael, who, by his brother's influence, had been made Archbishop of Athens in 1175, had a similar experience of "Latin" aggressions, and was even forced to retire to the island of Chios. Nicetas, with his family, fled from Constantinople to Nicæa, where he died. Nicetas is the author of several important works concerning Byzantine theology and history. ”

“ Historical facts are intermingled in this life with legendary or uncertain additions, and the whole is woven into a certain unity by the narrator, who may have assumed his significant name from his quality of narrator of "the good news" of Armenia's conversion (Ἀγαθάγγελος) . ”

“ III. In the third class belong scholastic Abbreviations, used to designate honorific titles acquired in the schools, to avoid the repetition of lengthy titles of books and reviews, or to facilitate reference to ecclesiastical and civil legislation. IV. In the fourth class of Abbreviations belong all such as are used to describe the elements of the year, civil or ecclesiastical. ”

“ Habit and convenience are to-day the principal motives for using abbreviations. Most of those in actual use fall under one or other of the following heads: I. Administrative; II. Liturgical; III. Scholastic; IV. Chronological.
I. The first class of Abbreviations includes those used in the composition of Pontifical documents. They were once very numerous, and lists of them may be seen in the works quoted below (e.g. Quantin, Prou) . ”

“ In the transaction of ordinary business the Roman Congregations are wont to use certain brief and pithy formulas (e.g. Negative = "No"; Negative et amplius = "No with emphasis") . They are not, correctly speaking, Abbreviations. For a list of these see Canon Law. This class includes also the abbreviations for the names of most sees. The full Latin titles of all existing (Latin) dioceses may be seen in the Roman annual, "Gerarehia Cattolica;" ”