LAYMAN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT.
Movement, Layman's Missionary.
See
LAZARISTS: 1. A name sometimes given to the Mekhitarists from their monastery on the island of San Lazzaro (2 m. s.e. of Venice). See Mekhitarists.
2. The common name of the congregation of secular priests for missions founded by St. Vincent de Paul from the old hospital of St. Lazare in Paris, where they had their mother house. See Vincent de Paul, Saint.
3. The Knights of St. Lazarus, organized for the care of the sick, especially lepers, probably at Jerusalem about the middle of the twelfth century. The tradition that the order was founded by the leprous King Baldwin IV. may be partially authentic, in that he probably showed special favor to a lazaretto in Jerusalem at that period, and knighted the brothers in attendance at it. After the thirteenth century, they spread throughout Europe, chiefly in Sicily, Lower Italy, and Germany, and most of all in France, where the lazaretto at Boigni (near Orleans) became the seat of the Grand Master. About 1490 the order was suppressed in Italy by Innocent VIII., only to be restored by Leo X. In 1572 they were united by Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy with the Knights of St. Maurice (founded 1434 and following Benedictine rule), and the two orders now devoted themselves to the defense of Roman Catholic doctrine against Protestantism. The Knights of Saints Lazarus and Maurice still exist in Italy as a secular order established by Victor Emmanuel I. of Sardinia in 1816.
In France the Knights of St. Lazarus were united in 1607 by Henry IV. with the Knights of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and under Louis XIV. they enjoyed special favor in 1672, receiving the estates of all extinct or suppressed French orders. After 1691, however, these estates were withdrawn, and henceforth the order slowly declined, being almost annihilated in the Revolution and being formally suppressed in 1830.
Lea Lebanon
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
As special insignia both the Italian and French branches bore a green cross with eight points, while the French division added lilies between the arms of the cross and pictures of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Lazarus rising from the dead.
(O. ZOCKLEEf.) Bibliography: Helyot, Ordres monastiques, i. 32, 54; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen; G. Uhlhorn, Die clinstliche Liebesthatigkeit im Mittelalter, pp. 272-274, 493-494; Currier, Religious Orders, p. 218.
LEA, HENRY CHARLES: Historian; b. in Philadelphia Sept. 19, 1825; d. there Oct. 24, 1909. He was educated privately, and in 1841 entered the publishing-house of Lea and Blanchard, in his native city, becoming a member of the firm in 1S51 and having sole control from 1865 to 1880, when he retired from active life. During the Civil War he was a member of the Union League, and always retained interest in municipal and civil reform. He is universally known by his studies of medieval ecclesiastical history, which comprise: Superstition and Force: Essays on Wager of Law, Wager of Battle, Ordeal, and Torture (Philadelphia, 1866); Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church (Boston, 1867; 3d ed., 2 vols., New York, 1907) ; Studies in Church History: Rise of Temporal Power, Benefit of Clergy, Excommunication (Philadelphia, 1869); History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (3 vols., New York, 1888); Chapters from the Religious History of Spain connected with the Inquisition (Philadelphia, 1890); Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary in the Thirteenth Century (1893); History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church (3 vols., 1896); The Moriscos of Spain, their Conversion and Expulsion (1901); and History of the Inquisition of Spain (4 vols., New York, 1906-07) ; Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies (1908).
LEAD (LEADE), JANE: English mystic; b. in Norfolk 1623; d. in London Aug. 19, 1704. Her maiden name was Ward. Receiving the usual education of the well-to-do English girl of the period, she heard, in her sixteenth year, a marvelous voice, which so impressed her that she devoted herself thenceforth to meditation. At the age of twentyone she married her kinsman William Lead, and after his death in 1670 lived in retirement in London. Her innate tendency to mysticism was furthered by her study of Jakob Boehme and her acquaintance with John Pordage (q.v.), an Anglican clergyman, after 1652; but she was not content with the visions of others, her vivid imagination speedily producing phantasms of her own. These occurred almost nightly and were recorded after 1670 in her diary, A Fountain of Gardens; but her writings made little impression until 1693, when one of them was translated into Dutch. She now became famous in an hour. An important event in her life at this period was her acquaintance with an Oxford scholar Francis Lee, who became successively her adopted son, secretary, and son-in-law, and gave her writings their present literary form. About the pair gathered a circle of mystics who termed themselves the Philadelphian Society and kept in close touch with Germany and Holland. In her latter years she had to struggle against poverty
and jealousy, though she was freed from the former by an annual pension of 400 florins given bv Baron Kniphausen. She regarded herself as the mere instrument of her visions; and her works though lacking in originality and style, exercised a wide influence in limited circles. Their character is sufficiently indicated by the titles: The Heavenly Cloud now Breaking: The Lord Christ's Ascension-Ladder Sent Down (London, 1681); The Revelation of Revelations, etc. (1683); The Enochian Walks with God, Found out by a Spiritual Traveller whose Face towards Mount Sion above was set etc. (1694); The Laws of Paradise, Given Forth by Wisdom to a Translated Spirit (1695); The Wonders of God's Creation Manifested in the Variety of Eight Worlds as They were made known experimentally unto the Author (1695); A Message to the Philadelphian Society, Whithersoever Dispersed over the Whole Earth (1696), followed by two similar messages in 1698; The Tree of Faith or the Tree of Life Springing up in the Paradise of God, etc. (1696); The Ark of Faith (1696); A Fountain of Gardens Watered by the Rivers of Divine Pleasure and Springing up in all the Variety of Spiritual Plants, etc. (4 vols., 1696-1701); A Revelation of the Everlasting Gospel Message (1697); The Ascent to the Mount of Vision (1698?); The Signs of the Times: Forerunning the Kingdom of Christ and Evidencing when it is to Come (1699); The Wars of David and the Peaceable Reign of Solomon, etc. (1700), with autobiographical material; A Living Funeral Testimony, or Death Overcome and Drowned in the Life of Christ (1702); and The First Resurrection in Christ (Amsterdam, 1704; dictated shortly before her death). (Arnold Ruegg.)
Bibliography: An autobiography exists in Sechs mystische Tractatlein, pp. 413-423, Amsterdam, 1696. Consult: DNB, xxxii. 312-313; I. W. Jaeger, Historic, ecclesiastica II., ii. 90-117, Hamburg, 1717; C. Walton, Notes for an Adequate Biography of W. Law, London, 1854; Canon Jenkins, in British Quarterly Review, July, 1873, pp. 181- 187.