RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Burton Busch
BURWASH, NATHANIEL: Methodist Episcopalian; b. at Argenteuil, Quebec, July 25, 1839. He was educated at Victoria College, Cobourg, Ont. (BA., 1859), Yale College, and Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, 111. (B.D., 1871). He entered the Methodist Episcopal ministry in 1860, and after acting as classical tutor in Victoria College in 1860- 1861, held pastorates until 1866, when he was recalled to Victoria College as professor of natural science. He was made dean of the theological faculty in the same institution in 1873, and since 1887 has been its president and chancellor. He is also a member of the senate and council of the University of Toronto and of the council of education for the province of Ontario. He has been a member of successive general conferences of his denomination since 1874, and was president of the one held in 1889-90, in addition to being secretary of education for the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada from 1874 to 1886. He has written: Memorials of Edward and Lydia Jackson (Toronto, 1876); Genesis, Nature, and Results of Sin (1878); Wesley's Doctrinal Standards (1881); Relation of ■Children to the Fall, the Atonement, and the Church (1882); Handbook on the Epistle to the Romans (1887); Inductive Studies in Theology (1896); Manual of Christian Theology (1900); Life and Times of Egerton Ryerson (1902); and The Development of the University of Toronto as a Provincial Institution (1905).
BURY, RICHARD DE: Bishop of Durham; b. at Bury St. Edmunds (61 m. n.e. of London) 1281, the son of Sir Richard Aungerville; d. at Auckland (11 m. s.w. of Durham) Apr. 14, 1345. He studied at Oxford, then entered the Benedictine order at Durham, became tutor to the future Edward III., who on his accession (1327) entrusted various ■offices i.o him, and sent him twice to Pope John XXII. as embassador, and later in the same capacity to Paris, Hainault, and Germany, and as commissioner for the affairs of Scotland. He was made dean of Wells, and the same year (1333) bishop of Durham. Useful as he was to the king and his country as a diplomat, and able as he was as an ecclesiastic, he is remembered solely as a bibliophile, perhaps the earliest in England worthy •of the name. He has no claim to be considered a scholar, but he loved books and used all his personal and official influence in their accumulation. Wherever he was, he was on the lookout for MSS., and he also had agents on the Continent in the search for them. So he had more books than all the other English bishops put together. Some of these MSS. he stored in his palace, others he is said to have deposited in the library he founded in Oxford in connection with Durham College (on the site of the present Trinity College). His love of books comes out in that bibliophile's delight, the Philobiblon (first published at Cologne, 1473, next at Speyer, 1483, and in Paris, 1500). It has been often republished, the best edition, having both the Latin text and an English translation, being hy Ernest C. Thomas (London, 1888), and Mr. Thomas's translation was reprinted 1902. Bibliography: Sources for a biography are: H. Wharton,
Anglia Sacra, i. 765 sqq., London, 1691; Historiw Dunel-
menses, edited for the Surtees Society by J. Raine, Durham, 1839; T. Rymer, Fcedera, vol. ii., best ed., London, 1816. Consult also DNB, viii. 25-27.
BUSCH, JAN: Dutch monastic reformer; b. at Zwolle (52 m. e.n.e. of Amsterdam) Aug. 9, 1399; d. at Suite, near Hildesheim, c. 1480. Educated first in the school of Zwolle, which then, under its famous rector Cele, numbered about a thousand students, he went to Erfurt at the age of eighteen to study law; but his inclination was for the monastic life, and in 1419 he entered the Windesheim house, of which Vos was then prior. He labored diligently to overcome theoretical doubts by study of the Scriptures and spiritual writers, and to form himself practically in the devout life. Vos, on his death-bed, exhorted him to constancy in reforming zeal, and he was soon sent to Bodingen near Cologne, where he was ordained priest. He remained four years at Bodingen, and then, after a short stay in the mother house, received a more difficult commission, being sent to Ludinkerken in East Friesland, where conditions of shocking laxity prevailed, but the great papal schism, a contested episcopal election, and his own weak health prevented him from accomplishing much there. After some years of comparative rest, he began his more important work in 1437 as subprior of the reformed monastery of Wittenberg near Hildesheim, which was to extend over a large part of Germany and to embrace especially, in the spirit of the Council of Basel, the reform of the Augustinian convents of both sexes, particularly in Saxony. Working in harmony with the Bursfelde Congregation (q.v.), he began with the neighboring monastery of Stilte, of which he took charge himself, with the title of provost, commonly used in Saxony instead of prior. His success in restoring discipline there induced the archbishop of Magdeburg in 1446 to place in his hands the Premonstratensian house of Our Lady in the same city. In the following year he became provost of the rich Neuwerkstift at Halle, combining with it the office of archdeacon, which gave him authority over 700 secular priests. After the plague of 1450, he went on to Glauchau, where he enjoyed the powerful support of his friend Nicholas of Cusa, who had been sent to Germany as cardinal-legate with special reference to monastic reform. After a provincial synod at Bergen, the legate entrusted Busch with the oversight of this work in the entire province, giving him full power to inspect all monasteries and reform whatever disorders he found, taking the Windesheim statutes as a standard. He went vigorously to work in Halle, Leipsic, and Halberstadt, but in 1452 the opposition aroused by his zeal led to demands for his removal being laid before the pope and the archbishop. At first they were fruitless, but when Busch found the archbishop cooling toward him, he resigned his office of provost, still retaining his powers as visitor. In 1456 he went to attend a general chapter at Windesheim, and remained there several years, living as a simple brother and employing the time in literary work. He wrote the lives of the first twenty-four brothers and of his teacher Cele [Liber de viris illustribus de Windeshem), as well as a chron-
Busembaum Butler