OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Bl. Thomas Woodhouse

From volume 14 of the work.
Martyr who suffered at Tyburn 19 June, 1573, being disembowelled alive. Ordained in Mary's reign, he was a Lincolnshire rector for under a year, and in 1560 acted as a private tutor in Wales. On 14 May, 1561, he was committed to the Fleet, London, having been arrested while saying Mass. For the rest of his life he remained in custody, uncompromising in his opposition to heresy, saying Mass in secret daily, reciting his Office regularly, and thirsting for martyrdom; but treated with considerable leniency till on 19 November, 1572, he sent the prison washerwoman to Lord Burghley's house with his famous letter. In it he begs him to seek reconciliation with the pope and earnestly to "persuade the Lady Elizabeth, who for her own great disobedience is most justly deposed, to submit herself unto her spiritual prince and father". Some days later in a personal interview he used equally definite language. Confined then by himself he wrote "divers papers, persuading men to the true faith and obedience", which he signed, tied to stones, and flung into the street. He was repeatedly examined both publicly and privately. Once, when he had denied the queen's title, someone said, "If you saw her Majesty, you would not say so, for her Majesty is great". "But the Majesty of God is greater", he answered. After being sentenced at the Guildhall either in April or on 16 June, he was taken to Newgate. He was admitted to the Society of Jesus in prison, though the Decree of the Congregation of Rites, 4 December, 1886, describes him as a secular priest. He is not to be confused with Thomas Wood (q.v.).
John B. Wainewright.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Bl. Thomas Johnson

From volume 14 of the work.
Carthusian martyr, died in Newgate gaol, London, 20 September, 1537. On 18 May, 1537, the twenty choir monks and eighteen brothers remaining in the London Charterhouse were required to take the Oath of Supremacy. Of these choir monks Thomas Johnson, Richard Bere, Thomas Green (priests), and John Davy (deacon) refused; and of the brothers Robert Salt, William Greenwood, Thomas Redyng, Thommas Scryven, Walter Pierson, and William Horne. On 29 May all were sent to Newgate, where they were chained standing and with their hands tied behind them to posts in the prison, and so left to die of starvation. However Margaret Clement, who as Margaret Giggs had been brought up in the household of St. Thomas More, bribed the gaoler to let her have access to the prisoners, and disguised herself as a milkmaid and carried in a milk-can full of meat, wherewith she fed them. After the king's inquiry as to whether they were not already dead, the gaoler was afraid to let her enter again; but she was allowed to go on the roof, and uncovering the tiles, she let down meat in a basket as near as she could to their mouths. However they could get little or nothing from the basket, and as the gaoler feared discovery, even this plan was soon discontinued. Greenwood died first (6 June), then Davy (8 June), Salt ( 9 June), Pierson and Green (10 June), Scryven (15 June), Redyng (16 June). It is probable that then Cromwell interfered and ordered those still living to be given food in order that they might be preserved for execution; for Bere did not die till 9 August, nor Johnson till 20 September. Horne survived, and though he could never be induced to quit his religious habit, was not attainted till 1540, when he was hanged, disembowelled, and quartered at Tyburn (4 August) with the five Praetermissi Robert Bird (layman), Lawrence Cook (Carmelite Prior of Doncaster), Thomas Epson (Benedictine), Giles Heron (layman), and probably with William Bird (Rector of Fittleton and Vicar of Bradford, Wiltshire). All ten Carthusians were beatified by Leo XIII on Dec., 1886. Blessed Richard Bere (Abbot of Glastonbury 1493-1525), and became a Carthusian on Feb., 1523. Blessed Thomas Green has been identified by Dom Bede Camm with Thomas Greenwood (B.A., Oxon, M.A., Cantab, 1511), who became Fellow of St. John's College Cambridge in 1515 and D.D. in 1532.
John B. Wainewright.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Bl. Thomas Sherwood

From volume 14 of the work.
Martyr, born in London, 1551; died at Tyburn, London, 7 February, 1578. His parents also suffered for their conscience, both enduring imprisonment for the Faith. After leaving school in 1566, Thomas assisted his father, a London woollen draper, for about ten years; then, feeling that his vocation was to the priesthood, he made arrangements to go to Douay College and was in London settling his affairs, and obtaining the means for his support and education. While so engaged he was recognized in Chancery Lane and betrayed by George Marten, son of Lady Tregonwell. Being examined before the Recorder as to his opinion of the bull of Pius V and as to whether an excommunicated queen held lawful sovereignty, he denied all knowledge of both Bull and excommunication, but expressed his opinion that if the queen were indeed excommunicated her rule could not be lawful. He was detained at Westminster, where the attorney-general visited him and found him constant in that opinion. On 17 November, 1577, he was committed to the Tower by the Privy Council to be retained close prisoner, from conference with any person, and if he did not willingly confess such things as were demanded of him, he was to be committed to the dungeon amongst the rats. He was repeatedly examined, and twice racked in order to elicit where he had heard Mass and who had been present thereat, but his constancy was unshaken. After being racked, he was cast into a dark and fetid dungeon, where he was kept absolutely without clothes, without food, and with nothing but the bare earth to lie upon. His friends were not allowed to supply his needs, and the utmost concession that William Romper could obtain was permission to supply him with straw to lie upon. He was brought to trial on 3 February, and pronounced guilty of high treason for denying the queen s supremacy; four days later he was executed. He was a man of good wit and judgment and, being well instructed in religious matters, was very helpful to many poor Catholics. Small in stature, he was of healthy constitution and of a cheerful disposition, which he maintained even amidst his torture.
Vatican Archives; PERSONS, Memoirs in Cath. Rec. Soc., II (London, 1906), documents in the Public Record Office; Tower Bills in Cath. Rec. Soc., III; POLLEN, Acts of English Martyrs (London, 1891); CHALLONER, Memoirs of the Missionary Priests.
J. L. Whitfield.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Bl. Thomas Ford

From volume 14 of the work.
Born in Devonshire; died at Tyburn, 28 May, 1582. He incepted M.A. at Trinity College, Oxford, 14 July, 1567, and was a fellow, Woods says president, of the college. He went to the English College, Douai, in 1570, and was one of the first three of its students to be ordained, receiving all orders in March, 1573, at Brussels. After becoming B.D. at Douai he left for England, 2 May, 1576, and soon became chaplain to Edward Yate and his Bridgettine guests at Lyford, Berkshire. Arrested with St. Edmund Campion 17 July, 1581, and committed to the Tower 22 July, he was thrice tortured. He was brought before the Queen's Bench 16 November, with his fellow martyr Blessed John Shert, on an absurd charge of conspiracy at Rome and Reims, where he had never been, on dates when he was in England, and both were condemned 21 November. With him suffered John Shert and Robert Johnson.
JOHN SHERT, BLESSED, a native of Cheshire, took the degree of B. A. at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1566. Successively schoolmaster in London, and servant to Dr. Thomas Stapleton at Douai, he entered the seminary in 1576, and was ordained subdeacon. He was ordained priest from the English College, Rome, of which he was senior of the first six scholars. He left Reims for England August 27, 1579, and was sent to the Tower, July 14, 1581.
ROBERT JOHNSON, BLESSED, b. in Shropshire, entered the German College, Rome, October 1, 1571. Ordained priest at Brussels from the English College Douai, in April, 1576, he started immediately for England. After a pilgrimage to Rome in 1579 he returned to England in 1580, and was committed to the Poultry Counter July 12, whence he was transferred to the Tower December 5 On December 16 he was terribly racked, and then thrust into an underground dungeon. He was brought before the Queen's Bench November 14, and condemned November 20
John B. Wainewright.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Bl. Simon of Cascia

From volume 13 of the work.
(SIMEONE FIDATI)
Italian preacher and ascetical writer, b. at Cascia, Italy; d at Florence, 2 February, 1348. At an early age he entered the Order of Augustinian Hermits, where he became distinguished for learning and as a model of every monastic virtue. He displayed great ability as a preacher, and his sermons at Perugia, Bologna, Siena, and Florence bore much fruit. He was especially successful in his work among fallen women, making many conversions and founding for them a house of penance. He also established at Florence a convent of women. He was beatified by Gregory XVI in 1833. He wrote "De gestis Christis", a history of the Gospels in fifteen books wherein the mystical sense of the sacred narrative is simply but learnedly set forth. The work was published at Basle (1517), Cologne (1533, 1540), and Ratisbon (1733). He is likewise the author of an "Expositio super evangelia" (Venice, 1486; Florence, 1496), of a work in Italian on the evils existing among the clergy (Milan, 1521; Turin, 1779), and a treatise "De beata Virgine" (Basla, 1517). Unpublished works of his are "De doctrina christiana"; "De vita christiana"; "De cognitione peccati"; "Expositio symboli"' "De speculo crucis"; "De conflictu christiano".
HURTER, Nomenclator.
Blanche M. Kelly.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Bl. Thomas Cottam

From volume 14 of the work.
Martyr, born 1549, in Lancashire; executed at Tyburn, 30 May, 1582. His parents, Laurence cottam of Dilworth and Anne brewer, were Protestants. Having completed his studies at Brasenose, Oxford (M.A., 14 July, 1572) he became master of a grammer school in London. Converted there to the faith by Thomas Pound he went over to Douai, and was ordained deacon at Cambrai, Dec., 1577. Desirous of the Indian mission, he went to Rome and was received (8 April, 1579) as a Jesuit novice at Sant' Andrea. Attacked by fever about October, he was sent to Lyons to recuperate, and went thence to the College at Reims, considering himself as accepted for India, if his health improved by a visit to England. In May (probably 28th), 1580, he was ordained priest at Soissons, and started (5 June) with four companions for England. Through the treachery of an English spy by the name of sledd he was immediately arrested at Dover, but by a ruse of Dr. Ely, one of his fellow-travellers, reached London safely. Ely being imperilled through this friendly act, Cottam voluntarily surrendered himself and was committed "close prisoner" to the Marshalsea, where he perhaps said his first Mass. After being tortured, he was removed, 4 December, 1580 to the Tower, where he endured the rack and the "scavenger's Daughter". He was arraigned with Campion and others and (16 November, 1581) condemned to death. His execution was deferred till 30 May, 1582 (see Munday's 'Breefe Reporte"), when with William Filby, Luke Kirby and Laurence Richardson, secular priests (all beatified 29 December, 1886), he was drawn to Tyburn and executed. His portrait, with martyrdom misdated, is reproduced in Foley, 'Records", VII (1) 174; his relics are the Mass corporal used by him and four other martyrs in the Tower (cf. Camm, English Marytrs, II, 563) and perhaps his autograph in the registers of Sant' Andrea.
PATRICK RYAN
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Habor

From volume 7 of the work.
[Heb. habhor; Sept. 'ABwr: IV Kings (II), xvii, 6, 'ABiwr: IV Kings, xviii, 11; XaBwr: I Chronicles 5:26].
A river of Mesopotamia in Asiatic Turkey, an important eastern affluent of the Euphrates. It still bears the name of Habur. It rises in Mt. Masius (the present Karaja Dagh), some fifty miles north of Resaina (Ras el-'Ain, "the head of the spring"), flows south/southwest, imparting great fertility to its banks in its winding way through the midst of the desert, and falls into the Euphrates at Karkisiya (the ancient Carchemish) after a course, to a great extent navigable, of about two hundred miles. The most important tributary of the Habor is the Jeruyer, or ancient Mygdonius, which flows into it after passing Nisibis and Thubida. In IV Kings, xvii, 6; xviii, 11, the Habor is called "the river of Gozan" (the modern Kaushan), on account of the district of that name which it waters and which is now covered with mounds, the actual remains of Assyrian towns. The river Habor is distinctly named in the cuneiform inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser I (about 1120-1110 B.C.), and, of Asshurnasir-pal (885-860 B.C.), and it seems from the expressions used by the last-named monarch that the river then emptied itself into the Euphrates through several mouths. In I Chronicles v, 26, it is stated that Phul, also called Thelgathphalnasar (Tiglathpileser III), carried away the exiles of the Transjordanic tribes of Israel into the district of the Habor. It is in the same land that according to IV Kings, xvii, 3-6; xviii, 9-11, Salmanasar IV—and perhaps Sargon, his immediate successor—settled the captives—of Northern Israel.
The Habor of IV Kings and I Chronicles must not be identified with the Chobar (Heb. Kebhar) which is repeatedly mentioned by the prophet Ezechiel (i, 1, 3; iii, 15, 23, etc.), and which was a large navigable canal, east of the Tigris, near Nippur. The Greek historian Procopius (6th cent. after Christ) says that the Chaboras (the classical name of the Habor) formed the limit of the Roman Empire. When the Spanish rabbi Benjamin of Tudela visited (A.D. 1163) the mouth of the Habor, he found near by some two hundred Jews who may have in part been the descendants of the ancient captives of the Assyrian kings. At the present day, the plain of the Habor is a favourite camping ground for wandering Bedouins.
FRANCIS E. GIGOT
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gustav Bickell

From volume 16 of the work.
Orientalist, b. at Cassel, 7 July, 1838; d. at Vienna, 15 Jan., 1906. His father, Johann Wilhelm Bickell, was professor of canon law at the University of Marburg, and died (1848) as minister of justice of Hesse-Cassel. In 1862 Gustav became Privatdozent of Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages at Marburg, but the following year he went in the same capacity to the University of Giessen. The finding of a clear testimony in favour of the Immaculate Conception in the hymns of St. Ephraem, which he was transcribing in London, led him to enter the Catholic Church, 5 Nov., 1865. After his conversion he entered the seminary of Fulda, where he was ordained priest, 22 Sept., 1865. He then taught Oriental languages at the Academy of Münster, and in 1871 was appointed extraordinary professor. At this period he became widely known by his vigorous defence of papal infallibility. In 1874 he went to the University of Innsbruck as professor of Christian archaeology and Semitic languages, which position he held till 1891, when he was called to the chair of Semitic languages at the University of Vienna.
He was an enthusiastic student and one of the foremost Semitic scholars of modern times. Besides numerous contributions to different reviews he published the following works: "De indole ac ratione versionis Alexandrinæ in interpretando libri Jobi" (Marburg, 1862); "S. Ephraemi Syri Carmina Nisibena", with prolegomena fixing the laws of Syriac metre (Leipzig, 1866); "Grundriss der hebräischen Grammatik" (ib., 1869–70), translated into English by Sam. I. Curtiss under the title "Outlines of Hebrew Grammar" (ib., 1877); "Gründe für die Unfehlbarkeit des Kirchenoberhauptes" (Münster, 1870); "Conspectus rei Syrorum litterariæ" (ib., 1871); "Messe und Pascha" (Mainz, 1872), tr. W. F. Skene, "The Lord's Supper and the Passover" (Edinburgh, 1891); "Schriften und Gedichte syrischer Kirchenväter" (vols. 71 and 72 of the "Sammlung der Kirchenväter" of Kempten); "S. Isaaci Antiocheni opera omnia" (2 vols., Giessen, 1873–77); "Kalilag und Damnag" (Leipzig, 1876); "Metrices biblicae regulæ exemplis illustratae" (Innsbruck, 1879); "Synodi brixinenses saec. quindecimi" (ib., 1880); "Carmina V. T. metrice" (ib., 1882); "Dichtungen de Hebraer" (3 vols., ib., 1882–84); "Der Prediger (Koheleth) über den Wert des Dasiens" (ib., 1886); "Das Buch Job" (Vienna, 1894).
F. Bechtel.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Flaviopolis

From volume 6 of the work.
A titular see in the province of Honorias. The city, formerly called Cratia, originally belonged to Bithynia (Ptolemy, V, i, 14), but was later attached to Honorias by Justinian (Novella xxix). Under Constantine the Great it received the name of Flaviopolis. No less than ten of its bishops are known from 343 to 869 (Lequien, I, 575-78). One of them, Paul, was the friend and defender of St. John Chrysostom. The most noted was St. Abraham, bishop in the sixth century, whose life has recently been published (Vailhé, "Saint Abraham de Cratia" in "Echos d'Orient", VIII, 290-94). The diocese was still in existence in the twelfth century. Flaviopolis, now known as Gueredé, is a caza situated in the sanjak of Bolou, and the vilayet of Castamouni. Its 4000 inhabitants, are nearly all Mussulmans; there are only 200 Christians, 40 of whom are Armenian Catholics. A small river, the Oulou Sou, irrigates the very fertile country. Fruit trees (peach, apricot, and cherry) grow there in great abundance.
S. VAILHÉ
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Flavius Claudius Jovianus

From volume 8 of the work.
Roman Emperor, 363-4. After the death of Julian the Apostate (26 June, 363), the army making war on Persia and then in retreat from Assyria proclaimed Jovianus emperor, after the prefect of the guard, Sallustius, a confidant of Julian, had refused the dignity on account of his advanced age. Jovianus was a son of the distinguished Count (Comes) Varronianus and a native of Pannonia. Though at that time less than thirty-three, he held the rank of captain in the imperial bodyguard. His election was hailed with joy by the Christians, since from him they could expect religious toleration. Although Jovianus had a warlike appearance, he lacked the spirit and decision of a soldier and leader of men. Therefore he accepted the conditions of peace offered by Shapur (Sapor), the crafty Persian king, and agreed to restore the boundaries of the empire as they existed before the peace with Diocletian in 297. The four satrapies east of the Tigris, with the fortified cities of Nisibis and Singara, were relinquished contrary to the wishes of the inhabitants, who were hostile to Persia, and the ancient connection between the Roman Empire and Armenia was severed. In return, the Roman army was permitted to retreat to the right bank of the Tigris without molestation. This weak agreement destroyed at one blow the Roman supremacy over the country about the Euphrates and Armenia, and Persia henceforth dominated the hither Orient. Under great difficulties Jovianus marched with the army from Mesopotamia to Antioch and thence to Tarsus, where he caused the mausoleum of his predecessor to be adorned. On 16 February, 364, during the march to Constantinople, the emperor was overtaken by a sudden death in the Bithynian frontier town of Dadastana, having been suffocated by coal gas in his bed-chamber, though possibly assassinated (Socrates, III, xx-xxv; VI, iii-vi). His body was brought to Constantinople and buried in the church of the Apostles beside that of Constantine. Jovianus was a zealous and orthodox Christian. He restored to the Church the privileges granted by Constantine and withdrawn by Julian. Athanasius, then seventy, was permitted to return from exile to Alexandria. ln a general edict of toleration, he established freedom for all forms of worship, even paganism, but forbade magical sacrifices, reintroducing the religious toleration proclaimed by Constantine in his Milan Edict of 313.
HERTZBERG, Gesch d. rom. Kaiserreichs, II (Berlin, 1880); SCHILLER, Gesch. d. rom. Kaiserzeit, II (Gotha, 1887); BLETTERIE, Hist. de l'emp. Jovien (Paris, 1748); TILLEMONT, Hist. des Empereurs, IV (Paris, 1697), 577-93, 702-3; GIBBON, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxv-xxviii; WORDSWORTH in Dict. Christ. Biog., s.v.; DUCHESNE, Hist. ancienne de l'eglise, II (Paris, 1907); BOISSIER, La fin du paganisme (5th ed., Paris, 1907).
KARL HOEBER
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Flavias

From volume 6 of the work.
A titular see of Cilicia Secunda. Nothing is known of its ancient name and history, except that it is said to be identical with Sis. Lequien (II, 899) gives the names of several of its bishops: Alexander, later Bishop of Jerusalem and founder of the famous library of the Holy Sepulchre in the third century; Nicetas, present at the Council of Nicaea (325); John, who lived in 451; Andrew in the sixth century; George (681); and Eustratus, Patriarch of Antioch about 868. If the identification of Flavias with Sis, which is probable, be admitted, it will be found that it is first mentioned in Theodoret's life of St. Simeon Stylites.
In 704 the Arabs laid siege to the stronghold of Sis. From 1186 till 1375 the city was the capital of the Kings of Lesser Armenia. In 1266 it was captured and burned by the Egyptians. Definitely conquered by the latter in 1375, it passed later into the power of the Ottomans. In the Middle Ages it was the religious centre of Christian Armenians, at least until the catholicos established himself at Etschmiadzin. Sis is still the residence of an Armenian catholicos who has under his jurisdiction several bishops, numerous villages and convents. It is the chief town of the caza of the same name in the vilayet of Adana and numbers 4000 inhabitants, most of whom are Armenians. The great heats compel the inhabitants to desert it during the summer months. It is surrounded by vineyards and groves of cypress and sycamore trees. Ruins of churches, convents, castles and palaces may be seen on all sides.
S. VAILHÉ