OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Agatha

​Agatha, a virgin martyred at Catana in Sicily under Decius, Feb. 5, 251, according to her Acta; but under Diocletian according to the Martyrol. and Aldhelm (de Virgin. 22); mentioned by Pope Damasus A.D. 366 (Carm. v.), and by Venantius Fortunatus c. 580; inserted in the Canon of the Mass by Gregory the Great according to Aldhelm (u.s., and see also S. Greg. M. Dial. iii. 30); and commemorated in a homily by Methodius, c. 900. Her name is in the Carthag. Calendar of c. 450; in Ruinart, p. 695; and in the black-letter calendar in our Prayer-book. Churches at Rome were dedicated to her by pope Symmachus c. 500; by Ricimer A.D. 460, enriched with her relics by Gregory the Great; and by Gregory II. in 726. She is the patroness of Malta (Butler's Lives of Saints). See also the homily against Peril of Idolatry, p. iii.
[A.W.H.]
# Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Albanus

​Albanus, M. The protomartyr of Britain was martyred probably at Verulamium, and according to either the "conjecture" or the "knowledge" (conjicimus or cognoscimus) of Gildas, in the time of Diocletian, and if so, A.D. 304, but according to another legend, which, however, still speaks of Diocletian, in 286 (Anglo-Sax. Chron., Lib. Landav.). Eusebius (H. E. viii. 13, and de Mart. Palaest. xiii. 10, 11), Lactantius (de Mort. Persecut. xv. xvi.), and Sozomen (i. 6) deny that there was any persecution during the time of Constantius in "the Gauls," which term included Britain. Possibly, however, Constantius may have been compelled to allow one or two martyrdoms. It is certain that 125 years after the latest date assigned to Alban's martyrdom, 144 after the earliest, viz. A.D. 429 (Prosper, Chron.), Germanus visited his relics in Britain, presumably at Verulamium (Constant. in V. S. Germani, written A.D. 473‒492). Gildas mentions him in 560 (his statement, however, about the persecution is of no value, being simply a transference of Eusebius's words to Britain, to which Eusebius himself says they did not apply), and Venantius Fortunatus (Poem. viii. iv. 155) c. 580. Bede, in 731, copies Constantius and certain Acta otherwise unknown. And the subsequent foundation of Offa in 793 only serves to identify the place with the tradition. The British Life discovered by the St. Albans monk Unwona in the 10th cent., according to Matthew Paris, in VV. Abb. S. Alban., is apparently a myth; and the Life by William of St. Albans (12th cent.) is of the ordinary nature and value of lives of the kind and date. But the testimony of Germanus, in Constantius's Life of him, seems sufficient proof that a tradition of the martyrdom of somebody named Albanus existed at Verulamium a century and something more after the supposed date of that martyrdom. His martyrdom with many fabulous details is related in Bede (i. 7). W. Bright, Chapters of Early Ch. Hist. (1897), p. 6.
[A.W.H.]
# Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Aerius, founder of the heretical sect of the Aerians

​Aerius, Ἀέριος, founder of the heretical sect of the Aerians, c. 355, still living when Epiphanius wrote against heresies, 374‒376. He was the early friend and fellow-disciple of Eustathius of Sebaste in Pontus. While they were living an ascetic life together, the bishopric of Sebaste became vacant. Each of the friends was a candidate for the office. The choice fell on Eustathius. This was never forgiven by Aerius. Eustathius endeavoured to soften his friend's disappointment by at once ordaining Aerius presbyter, and setting him over the hospital established at Sebaste (ξενοδοχεῖον, or πτωχοτροφεῖον). But all his attempts were fruitless. Aerius threw up his charge, deserted the hospital, and openly published grave accusations against his bishop. The rupture with Eustathius widened into a rupture with the church. Aerius and his numerous followers openly separated from their fellow-Christians, and professed ἀποταξία, or the renunciation of all worldly goods. They were consequently denied not only admission to the churches, but even access to the towns and villages, and they were compelled to sojourn in the fields, or in caves and ravines, and hold their religious assemblies in the open air exposed to the severity of Armenian winters.
Our knowledge of Aerius is from Epiphanius (Haer. 75). Augustine, de Haeresibus, c. 53, merely epitomises Epiphanius. Aerius went so fearlessly to the root of much that the church was beginning to cling to, that we cannot feel much surprise at the vehemence of Epiphanius with regard to his teaching.
Epiphanius asserts that he went beyond Arius in his impieties, specifying four counts. (1) The first with which the name of Aerius has been chiefly identified in modern times is the assertion of the equality of bishops and presbyters, μία τάξις, μία τιμή. ἕν ἀξίωμα. (2) Aerius also ridiculed the observance of Easter as a relic of Jewish superstition. (3) Prayers and offerings for the dead he regarded as pernicious. If they availed for the departed, no one need trouble himself to live holily: he would only have to provide, by bribes or otherwise, a multitude of prayers and offerings for him, and his salvation was secure. (4) All set fasts he condemned. A Christian man should fast when he felt it to be for his soul's good: appointed days of fasting were relics of Jewish bondage. Philaster, whose unconfirmed authority is very small, confounds the Aerians with the Encratites, and asserts that they practised abstinence from food and rejected marriage (Philast. Haer. 72). Consult Schröckh, Christliche Kirch. Gesch. vol. vi. pp. 226‒234; Walch, Ketzerhist. vol. iii. pp. 221 seq.; Neander, Ch. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 461‒563 (Clark's trans.); Herzog. Real-encycl. vol. i. 165; Tillemont, Hist. eccl. vol. ix. pp. 87 seq.
[E.V.]
# Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Albion

​Albion, king of the Langobardi, or Lombards, and founder of the kingdom subject to that people in Italy, was the son of that Audoin under whom the Lombards emerge from obscurity to occupy Pannonia, invited by the Emperor of Constantinople, in accordance with the usual Byzantine policy, as a check to the Gepidae. In the wars with the latter nation Alboin first appears. The confused accounts of them which Procopius preserves exhibit the tribe and their prince as rude and ferocious barbarians, and Alboin was a fit leader of such a tribe (Paul. Diac. i. 27, ii. 28). That he was personally a Christian, though an Arian, is proved by a letter from a Gallic bishop to his first wife, a Gallic princess, which deplores, not his heathenism, but his heresy (Sirmond. Conc. Gall. i.). Succeeding his father, Alboin accomplished, by the aid of the Avars, the destruction of the Gepidae (see Gibbon, c. xlv.). The conquest of Italy followed. Alboin's invading army was heterogeneous. Besides 20,000 Saxons accompanied by their families, who recrossed the Alps after the conquest, Muratori has deduced (Antich. It. i. diss. 1) from Italian topography the presence of the Bavarians, and Paul. (ii. 26) adds distinctly the names of several other tribes. The number of the army is unknown, but was considerable, as it was a migration of the whole tribe, and it largely changed the character and arrangements of population in Italy. Alboin left Pannonia in April 568; the passes were unguarded, and he learnt from his own success the need of securing his rear and the frontier of his future kingdom, and entrusted the defence and government of Venetia Prima, his first conquest, to Gisulf his nephew, with the title of duke and the command of those whom he should himself select among the most eminent of the "Farae" or nobles (Paul. ii. ix.). From this point the conquest was rapid. In Liguria (the western half of north Italy), Genoa, with some cities of the Riviera, alone escaped. Pavia held out for three years: perhaps its siege was not very vigorously pressed, for we know that a great part of Alboin's force was detached in flying squadrons which ravaged the country southwards all through Tuscany and Aemilia, to so great a distance that Paul mentions Rome and Ravenna as almost the only places which escaped. The death of Alboin followed the fall of Pavia. The story of his death is like that of his early life in the picture which it gives of a thoroughly barbaric society, where the skull of an enemy is used as a drinking-cup, and the men hold their banquets apart from the women (Gibbon, c. 45). Paul. avouches that the cup was to be seen in his own day. The chief authority for the life of Alboin, Paulus Diaconus, lived towards the ​end of the 8th cent., in the last days of the Lombard monarchy.
[E.S.T.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Alphery, Nikephor

​ALPHERY, NIKEPHOR (fl. 1618–1660), was one of the dispossessed clergy in the time of the great rebellion. The only authority for the particulars of his ejection is Walker's ‘Sufferings of the Clergy,’ where the author is not sure of the Christian name, and calls him Mikefer, but says he was descended from a branch of the imperial line of Russia, and was sent to England by Mr. Joseph Bidell, a Russian merchant, to be educated at Oxford, when his and his two brothers' lives were in danger from a powerful faction in Russia. In an article in the ‘S. D. U. K. Dictionary,’ Mr. Thomas Watts is unable to connect this story definitely with any records in Russian historians. He became rector of Woolley, in Huntingdonshire, in 1618, and was ejected in or about 1643. It appears that the ‘fifths’ were duly paid to him by his successor. At the Restoration in 1660 he was reinstated, but after some time retired to his son's house at Hammersmith, where he died. The particular hardships he endured are narrated by Walker, but, they are not worth recording, as they are given upon mere hearsay, derived from a letter from Peter Phelips, minister of Woolley, to Mr. Clavel. He was twice invited back to Russia, but preferred remaining in England to the chance of regaining a doubtful position in his native country.
[Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy.]
N. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Almeida, John

​ALMEIDA, JOHN (1572–1653), Jesuit missionary, was a native of London, his real name being Meade. At the age of ten he was taken, apparently without the consent of his parents, to Viana in Portugal, where he was piously brought up in the family of Benedict da Rocha, with whom he afterwards made the voyage to Pernambuco in Brazil. There he abandoned mercantile pursuits, and was admitted a member of the Society of Jesus in 1592. In describing the circumstances which led to his ‘vocation’ he says: ‘I have been withdrawn from England, from the city of London, a very nest of heresies, at a time when they were most rampant, and that too at an age when as yet I was ignorant of good and evil. I was taken away by one unknown to me, whom until then I had never seen, when alone, and in the absence of my parents, and, overcoming the objections to my accompanying him that suggested themselves, I went with him to Viana, and afterwards to Pernambuco in Brazil. It was here that God first inspired me to join this dear, beloved, and most holy society, of which I am so unworthy.’ At the end of the first year of his novitiate he was transferred to the city of Santo Spirito, where he had the Venerable Joseph Anchieta, the ‘modern thaumaturgus,’ for his master, on whose pattern he is said to have formed himself. After his ordination in 1602 he spent many years in wandering through the wilds of Brazil to preach the gospel and to reclaim unknown tribes to even a semblance of humanity. He always journeyed on foot, and, however rugged the way might be, he would never allow himself to be carried, as was the custom there, in a net. A detailed account of his missionary labours, his fastings, watchings, and other almost incredible austerities, is given by his companion, close friend, and religious superior, Fatheor Simon de Vasconcellos, in the scarce biography which bears the following title: ‘Vida do Joam d'Almeida da Companhia de Iesv, na provincia do Brazil, composta pello Padre Simam de Vasconcellos da mesma Companhia, Prouincial na dita Prouincia do Brazil. Dedicada ao Senhor Salvador Correa de Sâ, & Benauides dos Conselhos de Guerra, & Vltramarino de Sua Magestade,’ Lisbon, 1658, fol. pp. 414, with a fine portrait.
Father Almeida died in the Jesuit college at Rio Janeiro, 24 Sept. 1653. He had the reputation of a saint, and it is said that miracles were wrought in connection with him after his death.
[Life by Vasconcellos, quoted above; Morus, Historia Missionis Anglicanæ Soc Jesu, 503–518; Oliver's Collectanea S. J., 44; Foley's Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, vii. 1321–1339.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Alston, Charles

​ALSTON, CHARLES (1683–1760), scientific writer, was born at Eddlewood, and educated at Glasgow. On his father's death the Duchess of Hamilton took him under her patronage, and wished him to study law; but he preferred to turn his attention to medicine. He went to Leyden to study under Boerhaave, where he made the acquaintance of Dr. Alexander Monro. On the return of the two to Edinburgh, they revived the medical lectures in the university, Alston being appointed lecturer in botany and materia medica, and also (1716) superintendent of the botanical gardens: these posts he held until his death, which took place 22 Nov. 1760. He was the author of various medical papers, as well as of an index of the plants in the Edinburgh garden (1740), which is preceded by a Latin introduction to botany, and of ‘Tirocinium Botanicum Edinburgense’ (1753), in which he attacked the Linnæan system of classification. His lectures on materia medica were prepared for publication after his death by his friend and successor, Dr. J. Hope, and appeared in two 4to volums in 1770. Robert Brown dedicated to him the apocyneous genus ‘Alstonia.’
[Pulteney's Sketches of Progress of Botany (1790), ii. 9–16; Rees's Cyclopædia.]
J. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Alsop, Anthony

​ALSOP, ANTHONY (d. 1726), poetical writer, was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his M.A. degree 23 March 1696, and became B.D. 12 Dec 1706. He was a favourite with Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church, became censor of the college, and was tutor to the ‘principal noblemen and gentlemen’ belonging to it. Aldrich entrusted him with the publication of a selection from Æsop, entitled ‘Fabularum Æsopicarum Delectus,’ Oxon. 1698, as one of the series of classical works which the dean printed for new-year presents to his students. It contains 237 fables in Latin verse, with the original Greek of the first 158, the Hebrew of the next 10, the Arabic of the next 8, whilst the other 60 are in Latin only. The previous publication of Boyle's ‘Phalaris’ in the same series had just given the occasion of the famous controversy with Bentley. In the preface to his ‘Æsop’ Alsop refers to Bentley as a man ‘in volvendis lexicis satis diligentem,’ and gives an elegant version of the fable of the dog in the manger, with an intimation, in the phrase ‘singularis humanitas,’ of its applicability to Bentley. (The fable is given in Monk's Bentley, i. 97.) This was followed up by the combined assault of the Christ Church wits upon Bentley, who refers contemptuously to Alsop. Warton, in his essay on Pope (ii. 320), speaks of the sixty fables as ‘exquisitely written.’ Bishop Trelawny afterwards gave Alsop a prebend in Winchester, with the rectory of Brightwell in Berkshire. In 1717 an action was brought against him for breach of promise of marriage, and a verdict for 2,000l. damages was given against him. He had to leave the country in consequence, but returned after a time, and on 16 June 1726 a bank gave way as he was walking in his garden, when he fell into the river and was drowned. He left many Latin odes in manuscript. In 1748 a proposal for publishing them was issued by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Francis Bernard [see Bernard, Sir Francis], who says that he has been ‘not unjustly esteemed inferior only to his master Horace.’ They were published in 1752, with a dedication to the Duke of Newcastle. The classical taste which they display seems to have been combined with the facetious qualities of a college don, not too rigidly decorous, and as fond of smoking as his patron Aldrich, one of the odes being composed, as he intimates, with a pipe in his mouth. He is mentioned in the fourth book of the ‘Dunciad,’ v. 224—
Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke,
 And Alsop never but like Horace joke—
lines which, as Pope told Spence, are intended to have in them more satire than compliment. Some of his poems are in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ vols. v. viii. ix., and in Dodsley's collection.
[Nichols's Anecdotes, ii. 233; Notes and Queries, 1st series, i. 249.]
L. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gethin, Grace

​GETHIN, GRACE, Lady (1676–1697), learned lady, daughter of Sir George Norton of Abbot's Leigh, Somersetshire, was born in 1676, married Sir Richard Gethin, baronet, of Gethin Grott, Ireland, and died on 11 Oct. 1697. She was buried at Hollingbourn, Kent, and a monument was erected to her in Westminster Abbey. A sermon was founded to be preached in the abbey upon Ash Wednesday in memory of her. A collection of papers found after her death was published in 1699 as ‘Reliquiæ Gethinianæ;’ a second edition appeared in 1700, and a third, to which a portrait was prefixed, in 1703. The last includes a copy of verses by Congreve, and to it is appended a funeral sermon by Peter Birch [q. v.], published separately in 1700. The book is more creditable to the taste than to the knowledge of her executors. Many passages are from Bacon's ‘Essays,’ copied in her commonplace book and mistaken for her original composition by several of her biographers.
[Reliquiæ Gethinianæ, 1703; Ballard's Learned Ladies, 1775, pp. 252–3; Noble's Granger, i. 280; Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey; Collinson's Somersetshire, iii. 153.]
L. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gervase of Chichester

​GERVASE of Chichester (fl. 1170), commentator, was one of the band of learned young men who gathered round Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury. Although one of his party, he did not follow him into exile (Bosham). Leland and Bale say that he was brought up at Paris and was a fine preacher, statements which, though highly probable, have not perhaps any authoritative basis. He is said to have written a commentary on the Psalms, and a life of Archbishop Thomas. For this life there is some authority. One of his works, a commentary on Malachi, is extant, MS. Reg. 3 B. x. It is followed by two homilies, and is prefaced by some hexameters in which the author speaks of Thomas as affording a model of sacerdotal life, and says that he is preparing to write a life of him. On the strength of this he has been credited with the life ascribed by Giles to Roger of Pontigny, and printed by Canon Robertson in the ‘Materials for the Life of Becket,’ iv., as by an anonymous author. It is certainly not by Gervase, for the author was one of those who accompanied the archbishop. Leland says that Gervase's work is cited in a life by Helias of Evesham, but if it ever existed it is now lost.
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gething, Richard

​GETHING, RICHARD (1585?–1652?), calligrapher, a native of Herefordshire, and a scholar of John Davies [q. v.], the famous writing-master of Hereford, was thought to surpass his master in every branch of his art. Coming to London, he started in business at the ‘Hand and Pen’ in Fetter Lane. In 1616 he published a copy-book of various hands in twenty-six plates, oblong 4to, which are very well executed. In 1645 he brought out his ‘Chirographia,’ consisting of thirty-seven plates engraved by Goddart. In it Gething says ‘he has exactly traced and followed certain pieces, both in character and language, of the ablest calligraphotechnists and Italian masters that ever wrote, with certain pieces of cursory hands, not heretofore extant, newly come in use.’ Another edition of the ‘Chirographia,’ probably published after his death, is entitled ‘Gething Redivivus, or the Pen's Master-Piece. Being the last work of that eminent and accomplished master in this art, containing exemplars of all curious hands written,’ London, 1664, oblong 8vo. Prefixed is his portrait engraved by J. Chantry. In 1652 he published ‘Calligraphotechnia, or the art of faire writing set forth and newly enlarged.’ It contains thirty-six folio plates, and his portrait inscribed ‘Richardus Gethinge, Herefordiensis, æt. 32.’ This work is probably an enlargement of his first book, as some of the plates are dated 1615 and 1616. Moreover there is a dedication to his ‘very good master, Sir Francis Bacon, knight,’ afterwards the lord chancellor.
Massey considers that ‘on account of his early productions from the rolling press, he may stand in comparison with Bales, Davies, and Billingsley, those heads and fathers, as I may call them, of our English calligraphic tribe;’ and Fuller, speaking of Davies and Gething, quaintly remarks: ‘Sure I am, when two such Transcendant Pen-Masters shall again come to be born in the same shire, they may even serve fairly to engross the Will and Testament of the expiring Universe.’
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 261; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th edit. iii. 194; Massey's Origin and Progress of Letters, p. 80; Works of John Davies, ed. Grosart, i. xiii.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barff, Samuel

​BARFF, SAMUEL (1793?–1880), promoter of Greek independence, was born about 1793, presumably in England (Trikoupes' Ἱστορία, iii. 131). In 1816 he established himself at Zante, became an eminent merchant and banker, and terminated a long career in that island, 1 Sept. 1880, ‘at the advanced age of eighty-seven’ (Times, 23 Sept. 1880).
Barff took an active part in the struggle for independence carried on by the Greek nation at the time of Lord Byron's mission, and he was one of the last survivors of the Englishmen connected with that movement. His reputation for honour, kindliness, and disinterestedness, is brought prominently forward in a series of letters addressed to him from Missolonghi by Lord Byron early in 1824, which are preserved in Moore's ‘Life of Lord Byron.’ It there appears that the negotiation of loans and the distribution of funds were confidently committed to Barff; whilst with patriotic benevolence he protected the persons and interests of stray Englishmen who had mistaken their way into Greece at that disturbed time. In these letters Barff is also recognised as the mediator through whom Georgio Sisseni, the Capitano of the rich district about Gastruni, made overtures of adhesion after having for a considerable period held out against the general government. Barff offered his country house to Lord Byron in the event of the health of the latter requiring his removal from Missolonghi.
A. H. G.