RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Acta Martyrum Acton
it character and impress themselves on the memory. People forget the age and parentage of
St. Gertrude, but they remember
3. Eng- the mouse running up her staff." The
lish Lives style is diversified by occasionally in-
of Saints, troducing translations and accounts by
other writers. The Sanctorale Catholicum, or Book of Saints, by Robert Owen (London, 1880), is a single octavo volume of 516 pages, provided with critical, exegetical, and historical notes. The Saints in Christian Art (3 vols., London, 1901- 04), by Mrs. Arthur George Bell (nee Nancy Meugens, known also by the nom ale plume " N. d'Anvers "), contains sketches of the lives of the saints treated, written with little discrimination as to sources and in an uncritical, credulous spirit. The Saints and Servants of God is a series of lives, original and translated, edited by Frederick William Faber and continued by the Congregation of St. Philip Neri (42 vols., London, 1847-56). A second series was begun in 1873, in which the lives for the most part are translations of those drawn up for the processes of canonization or beatification. Another series, consisting of single-volume lives of various saints, specially prepared by modern writers, is being issued in authorized English translation under the editorship of Henri Joly for the original (French) volumes, and of the Rev. Father George Tyrrell, S.J., for the translations (Paris and London, 1898 sqq.).
A number of works are devoted to saints of the British Isles. As to the older works of this character Baring-Gould remarks (Introduction, i., pp. xxix.-xxx., ed. 1897):
" With regard to England there is a Martyrology of Christ Church, Canterbury, written in the thirteenth century, and now in the British Museum; also a Martyrology written between 1220 and 1224 from the southwest of England; this also is in the British Museum. A Saxon Martyrology, incomplete, is among the Harleian MSS. in the same museum; it dates from the fourteenth century. There is a transcript among the Sloane MSS. of a Martyrology of North-English origin, but this also is incomplete. There are others, later, of less value. The most interesting is the Martiloge in Englysshe after the use of the chirche of Salisbury, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1526, reissued by the Henry Bradshaw Society in 1893. To these Martyrologies must be added the Legenda of John of Tynemouth, 1350; that of Capgrave, 1450, his Nova legenda, printed in 1516; Whitford's Martyrology, 1526; Wilson's Martyrologe, 1st ed., 1608, 2d. ed., 1640; and Bishop Challoner's Memorial of Ancient British Piety, 1761."
Bishop Challoner's larger Britannia Sancta, or the Lives of the Most Celebrated British, English, Scottish, and Irish Saints (2 parts, London, 1745) may also be mentioned. The Saints and Missionaries of the Anglo-Saxon Era, by D. C. O. Adams (2 ser., Oxford, 1897-1901), is a collection of brief and popular lives brought down to Queen Margaret of Scotland (d. 1093). A Menology of England and Wales, compiled by Richard Stanton, priest of the Oratory, London (London, 1887; Supplement, 1892), is probably the fullest list in existence of names of English and Welsh saints, with brief biographical notices. It is a scholarly work based upon sources (calendars, martyrologies, legends, histories, acts) many of which were previously inedited. A somewhat wide interpretation is given to the terms " English " and " saint." The Lives
of the Irish Saints, with Special Festivals and th», Commemoration of Holy Persons, by John O'Hanlon, is an exhaustive work, in somewhat florid style, arranged according to the calendar, one volume being devoted to each month (Dublin, 1875 sqq.). Scottish calendars have been edited, with brief biographies of the saints, by A. P Forbes in his Kalendars of Scottish Saints (Edinburgh, 1874). For Wales there is W J. Rees's Lives of the Cambro- British Saints of the Fifth and Immediate Succeeding Centuries (Llandovery, 1853). Cardinal John Henry Newman's Lives of the English Saints (15 vols., London, 1844-45, and often) is more interesting now for the history of the movement which called it forth than as a contribution to hagioiogy. See also the bibliography of the article Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland.
Bibliography: For elaborate bibliographical lists of acts and lives of saints: A. Potthast, Bibliotheca historica medii aivi, pp. xxxii.-xxxv., 1131-1646, Berlin, 1896 (the most complete list yet made in which the editions are accurately given); MGH, Index volume, Hanover, 1890; T. Ruinart, Acta primorum martyrum smcera et selecta, Paris, 1689 (latest ed., Ratisbon, 1859) ; Gross, Sources, pp. 84-89, 213-222, 245-249, 390-400, 442, 517-525; R. Knopf, Ausgewahlte Martyrakten, Tubingen, 1901; O. von Gebhardt, Acta Martyrum selecta, Leipsic, 1902. For history and criticism: A. Ebert. Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande, 3 vols., ib. 1874- 87 (2d ed. of vol. i., 1889, perhaps the best survey of the subject); C. Jauningus, Apologia pro Actis Sanctorum, Antwerp, 1695; A. Scheler, Zur Geschichte des Werkes Acta Sanctorum, Leipsic, 1846; J. B. Pitra, Etudes sur la collection des Actes des Saintes publies par les Bollandistes, Paris, 1850; J. Carnandet and J. Fevre, Les Bollandistes et I'hagiographie ancienne et moderne, ib., 1866; Dehaisnes, Les Origines des Acta Sanctorum et les protecteurs des Bollandistes dans le nord de France, Douai, 1870; A. Tougard, De I'histoire profane dans les actes grecs des Bollandistes, Paris, 1874; C. de Smedt, Introductio generalis ad hist, eccl., Ghent, 1876 (contains a bibliography in pp. 111-197); E. le Blant, Acta Sanctorum et leur sources, Paris, 1880; idem, Les Actes des martyres , supplement aux Acta sincera de Dom Ruinart, ib. 1882; E. Egli, Altchristliche Martyrien und Martyrologien altester Zeit, Zurich, 1887; A. Ehrhard, Die altchristliche Litteratur und ihre Erforschung, i. 539-592, Freiburg, 1900; Harnack, Litteratur, ii. 2, 463-482.
ACTON, JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG, first Baron Acton: Roman Catholic layman; b. in Naples, Italy, Jan. 10, 1834; d. at Tegernsee (31 m. s. of Munich) June 19, 1902. He was educated at Oscott College, Birmingham, from 1843 to 1848, then at Edinburgh, finally at the University of Munich. At Oscott the president, Nicholas Wiseman, afterward archbishop and cardinal, greatly influenced him, but at Munich the greater scholar, Dr. Dollinger, still more. These men fostered his love of truth and passion for accurate historical knowledge. Being wonderfully gifted and highly trained, he set forth upon a career of learned acquisition which made him the admiration of his associates. But in his own communion he soon became unpopular because he was a pronounced liberal. He conducted the " Home and Foreign Review " from 1862 to 1864 in the interest of anti-Ultramontanism, and so was condemned by the hierarchy and his journal virtually suppressed. He then pursued the same course in the " North British Review " from 18b8 to 1872. His chief object of attack was the doctrine of papal infallibility, and he did all he could
Acton
Adalbert of Prague