Vercelli in the Berengarian Controversy. During the English Reformation the work was suddenly resurrected from iis obscurity, and had much influence. It was published at Cologne in 1532, after having been brought into notier by bishop Fi.-her. of Rochester, as early as 1526, thai prelate referring to it as maintaining the tut/i- o//r- doctrine of the euchari-t. It largely influenced the minds of archbishop Cranmer and bishop Ridley; and, a- it proved of more service t,> the Protestants than to the Romanists, it wa- put into the Index in 1559 by the censors of the Tridentine Council. In England an edition was brought out in English by William Hugh, under the name of Tin />■>"/. of Bertram, in 1548. In the Bibliotheca Maxima, containing Ratramnus's writ- ings, this work is omitted, on the ground thai it is a forgery of the Reformers, or i-. at least, so hopelessly interpolated by supposititious heretics that it is not worth while to attempt its restoration. Vet there are
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theologians even in the Church of Rome who main- tain the position assumed by Katramnus as defensible. Against Hincmar of Kheims Ratramnus defended Gode- schalcus in the dispute over the trina deltas ; but this apology is lost. Another work is his Liber de Eo, quod Christus ex Firgine natus est, in which it is not ques- tioned that Mary, utero cluuso, conceived, but rather the opinion which sprang up at about that time, that the conception had been incerto tramite. Katramnus gained most renown among his contemporaries by his work Contra Grcecorum Opposita, with which, by re- quest of Hincmar of Rheims, he opposed the encyclica of Photius in 867, and defended the Oriental Church and her dogmas. In the Migne edition, these works are in the Patrohgie, exxi, 1-346 and 1153-1156. See Mabillon, Benediktiner Annalen, vol. ii and iii; Hist. Lift, rain' </<■ la France, v, 332-351; Hilgenfeld, Zeit- schriftf. hist. Theol. 1858, p. 546 sq.; Baur, Dogmen- gesch. vol. ii; Gieseler, Eccles. Hist.; Soames, Hist, of the Reformation, iii, 118 sq. (J. H. AV.)
Ratte, Guitard de, a French prelate, was born at Montpellier in 1552. He was advisory clerk in the Parliament of Toulouse. When imprisoned with the president, Duranti, he showed so much opposition to the government that his house and library were pillaged, and he was condemned by Parliament to be executed. Henry IV indemnified Ratte by giving him the abbey of Saint-Sauveur of Lodeve, and a life-pension of 12,000 francs. For his fidelity to the king, he afterwards re- ceived the abbey of Val-Rieher, in the diocese of Ba- yeux, and that of Saint-Chinian, in the diocese of Saint- Vous. He was made vicar-general at Montpellier and archdeacon of Valence, and in 1596 bishop of Montpel- lier. On his way to Toulouse he was attacked by three large dogs, and mortally wounded. He died July 7, 1602. See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generate, s. v.
Rattles (Fr. crecelle, tarturelle, rattelh ; Lat. cro- talum). Prior to the introduction of hells (q. v.), rat- tles of wood or of iron were struck or shaken by the hand to summon the people to worship. The Celtic cloe, which preceded the use of bells, was a board with knockers. The Greeks used the ayioa'th]pov (sacred iron), a mallet and plate of iron, and the dyia %v\a (sacred wood), two clappers, as a summons to prayer. The latter are mentioned by John Climacus as used for rapping at the cell-doors in the monasteries of Pales- tine, in the 6th century, as a night signal and waking- hammer. At University and New colleges, Oxford, fel- lows are summoned to a meeting in common room by the blow of a hammer at the stair-foot. By the rule of Pachomius a trumpet was used. At Burgos the clappers are called matraca ; in Italy, serandolu ; and in some parts of France, symandres, which sound for ser- vice between the Mass on Maundy-Thursday and the Gloria in Excelsis, sung on Easter eve in the mass after Nones, when the bells are disused, in memory of the Lord's silence in the tomb, and the speechless timidity of the apostles— a custom dating from the 8th century. At Caen the ceremonial gives the signal for censing with tablets. Neogorgus says that boys carried rattles in the procession of Good -Friday. — Walcott, Sacred Archceology, s. v.
Rattray, Thomas, D.D., an English prelate, flour- ished in the first half of the 18th century. He was ed- ucated at Oxford University, took holy orders shortly after graduation, and, after rilling various ecclesiastical preferments, became in 1727 bishop of Dunkeld, and in 1739 primus. He died in 1743. His publications are, Essay on the Nature of the Church, etc. (Edinb. 1728): —The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem (Lond. 1744, 4to) : — Some Particular Instructions con- cerning the Christian Covenants (ibid. 1748).
Ratze(n)bergei', Matth.^us, a physician at the court of the elector Joachim in the Reformation period. He took such an important part in the Protestant move- ment that he deserves a place here. He was born at
Wangen, in Wurtemberg, in 1501, and was educated at the University of Wittenberg, where he was the con- stant companion of Luther; and when, by the decided part he had taken at the court of the elector Joachim, where he was court physician, he was obliged to aban- don a most lucrative position and practice, he was, by the intercession of his dear school friend, made body physician of the count of Mansfield, and held this posi- tion until, in 1538, the elector John Frederic of Saxony made him his court doctor. He was also the house physician of the great Reformer himself, and frequent-' ly together the two friends discussed the exciting questions of the day, the physician being daily drawn closer and closer towards the earnest evangelical preach- er. Ere he was aware of it, Ratzenberger was as much a student of theology as of medicine, and finally he wrote theological treatises, many of which have re- tained their value, and attest the unconscious influ- ence of Martin Luther upon him. All his writings 1 betray a desire of approval for the Lutheran position, and they are therefore valuable as an index of much that Luther thought, but never wrote himself. Hence, also, Ratzenberger's Historia Lutheri, newly edited by Neudecker (Jena, 1850), is one of the most valuable con- tributions to the material for Luther's memoirs. The Historica Relatio de Johanne Friderico, etc., first men- tioned in Arnold's Kirchen v. Ketzergesch., later as His- toria A rcana, and finally published under the title D. M. Ratzenberger's geheime Geschichte, etc. (Altorf, 1775), is now generally regarded as a forgery of the anti-Me- lancthonians, and W. von Reiffenstein, of Stolberg, is supposed to have been its author (1570). After the death of Luther, Ratzenberger was one of his executors, and an editor of the German edition of the Reformer's writings published at Jena. See the Life of Luther bv Seckendorf; Biographic, von Andreas' Poach (Jena, 1559). (J.H.W.).