OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Antoine Anselme

From volume 1 of the work.
A celebrated French preacher, b. at l'Isle-Jourdain in the Comté d'Armagnac, 13 January, 1652; d. at Saint-Sever, 8 August, 1737. His father was a distinguished surgeon. Anselme studied at Toulouse and became a priest. As a child he was called the "Little Prophet," because he would repeat with appropriate gestures sermons which he had heard only once. The sobriquet clung to him up to his death. After his ordination he preached in Toulouse, and the Marquis de Montespan was so delighted with his eloquence that he made him instructor to his son, the Marquis d'Antin, and brought him to Paris. Père Anselme's eloquent sermons there soon procured him such repute as a sacred orator that parishes wishing to secure him had to do so two or three years in advance. In 1681 the French Academy chose him to deliver before it the panegyric on St. Louis. Two years later (1683) he preached at Court. Mme. de Sévigné in one of her letters (8 April, 1689) speaks in warm praise of his intelligence, eloquence, charm, and devotion. He became a member of the Academy of Inscriptions in 1710. He died at the age of eighty-five, in the Abbey of Saint-Sever which Louis XIV had given him in 1699. Father Anselme's writings are some odes printed in the "Recueil de l'Académie des Jeux Floraux de Toulouse"; "Panegyrics of Saints and Funeral Orations at Paris in 1718" (3 vols. 8vo., with his portrait); "Sermons for Advent, Lent, and Various Occasions" (Paris, 1731, 4 vols. 8vo., and 6 vols. 12mo.); divers dissertations inserted in the "Memoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions" from 1724 to 1729.
JOHN J. A'BECKET
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Antoine-Jean-Baptiste-Robert Auget, Baron de Montyon

From volume 10 of the work.
Famous French philanthropist; b. at Paris, 23 December, 1733; d. there 29 December, 1820. He was the son of a wealthy official of the Exchequer. As soon as he had completed his education, young Montyon was made king's advocate at the court of Le Châtelet (Paris) where his inflexible integrity won for him the surname of "Grenadier of the Bar." In 1758 he entered the Great Council and in 1760 was appointed master of the petitions. In 1767 he became intendant of Auvergne, where his liberality to the poor endeared him to the people. It is said that he yearly spent as much as twenty thousand francs of his private income to give work and help to needy families. On his refusal to install the new magistrates appointed by Maupeou after the suppression of the Parliaments, he was transferred to the intendance of Provence and then to La Rochelle. In 1775, through the influence of the duc de Penthievre, he was recalled to Paris and appointed councillor of State. Amidst the cares of public life, he had found time for the study of economics and belles-lettres. The French Academy awarded a distinction to his "Eloge de Michel de l'Hôpital" (Paris, 1777). The following year he published "Recherches et considerations sur la population de la France." Montyon's great concern, however, was philanthropy, which he delighted to practice in an anonymous way. In order to foster emulation for the good among his countrymen, he founded a number of prizes to be awarded by the French Academy, the Academy of Science, or the Academy of Medicine.
At the beginning of the French Revolution, he thought it was his duty to share the fortunes of the princes of the House of Bourbon, and he left the country. He travelled in Switzerland and Germany, but spent the greater part of his exile in London; during his stay in that city, he gave each year ten thousand francs to relieve the French refugees, and the French soldiers who were prisoners in England; the same amount was sent to the poor of Auvergne. Montyon returned to France in 1815 at the time of the second restoration and henceforth devoted all his time to the work that had made his name famous. He re-established the prizes which he had founded before the Revolution and which had been abolished by the National Convention. The best known of these prizes are "le prix du vertu", to reward a virtuous act done by a poor Frenchman, and the prize to be bestowed on the author of the work most useful to morals. These prizes are to be awarded by the French Academy. Montyon also distributed large sums of money among the bureaus of charities in Paris. His will, in which are expressed sentiments of the deepest piety, bequeathed the bulk of his property to the hospitals and homes of his native city.
LACRETELLE, Discours sur M. de Montyon in Recueil de l'Academie (1820-29); CHAZET, Vie de M. de Montyon (Paris, 1829); WAILLY, Eloge de M. de Montyon (Paris, 1826).
Pierre Marique.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Antoine-Simon Maillard

From volume 9 of the work.
Missionary b. in France (parentage, place and date of birth unknown); d. 12 August, 1762. He was sent to Acadia by the French Seminary of Foreign Missions in 1735. In 1740 he was appointed vicar-general to the Bishop of Quebec, and resided at Louisbourg until its fall in, 1745, after which he retired to the woods and ministered to the dispersed Acadians and Indians of Cape Breton, St. John's (Prince Edward) Island, and the eastern coast of Acadia (Nova Scotia). He was the first to acquire a complete mastery of the extremely difficult language of the Micmacs, for whom he composed a hieroglyphic alphabet, a grammar, a dictionary, a prayerbook, a catechism, and a series of sermons. Although credited with the gift of tongues, he had devoted over eight years to his task. Maillard was the only Catholic priest tolerated by the English in Acadia. When the Indians, to avenge British barbarity towards the Acadians and their missionaries, massacred every English subject that strayed within their reach, the Government appealed to Maillard, whose influence wrought an immediate change. In recognition, he was invited to Halifax, where a church was built for him, and he received a pension of 200 pounds, the free exercise of the Catholic Faith being conceded to all his coreligionists, Irish as well as Acadian and Indian. From Halifax he addressed to the scattered groups letters that were read with veneration like the Epistles of St. Paul. At death's hour, after thirty years of laborious ministry, being without any priest to administer the last rites, he was visited by the Anglican parson, Thomas Wood, who offered his ministration. Calmly and gently Maillard refused, saying: "I have served God all my life, and each day I have prepared for death by offering up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass." Thus vanishes the legend of his request to Wood to read the prayers for the sick from the English ritual. His body alone could the Protestants claim, and they interred it with great demonstrations of honour. He is justly named the Apostle of the Micmacs, by whom he is still held in great veneration, and who, in spite of many trials and temptations, have preserved, with their language, the Faith he taught them.
Soirees Canadiennes (Quebec, 1863); Canada-Francais (Quebec, 1888); CASGRAIN Au pays d'Evangeline (Paris, 1890). Les Sulpiciens en Acadie (Quebec, 1897); O'BRIEN, Memoirs of Right Rev. Edmund Burke (Ottawa, 1894); PLESSIS, Journal des visites pastorales de 1815 et 1816. (Quebec, 1903).
LIONEL LINDSAY
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/William the Walloon

From volume 15 of the work.
Date of birth unknown; d. (probably) 22 Dec., 1089. He became Abbot of St. Arnoul at Metz in 1050. He continued the good traditions of his predecessor, Abbot Warin, in the government of his monastery, and devoted his leisure to study, especially of the works of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. On 30 June, 1073, Gregory VII wrote to Archbishop Manasses of Reims, rebuking him for his ill treatment of the monks of St-Remi, and ordering him to procure the election of a suitable abbot. William of St-Anoul was elected, but quickly found his position untenable. In spite of promises made to William in person (see his fourth letter), Manasses continued his persecution, and towards the end of 1073 the abbot journeyed to Rome to secure the acceptance of his resignation. In a letter to Manasses, probably sent by William, the pope says that the abbot is very pleasing to him and that he would desire him to retain both abbacies, but that, if he persists in resigning St-Remi, the archbishop is to accept his resignation and seek his advice in the election of a successor. In another letter, to Bishop Herimann of Metz, he informs him that William wishes to return to St-Arnoul, and recommends him to the bishop's charity, "that he may feel that his coming to us has profited him." In the event, Manasses roughly demanded the return of the abbatial crosier and appointed Henry, Abbot of Hoimbliere, in William's place, apparently without consulting him. William returned to Metz, but some twelve years later, though on friendly terms with Bishop Herimann, weakly allowed himself to be consecrated and intruded into the See of Metz when the Emperor Henry IV drove out the rightful bishop, in 1085. The following year, however, he sought out Herimann, publicly resigned the dignity he had usurped, and retired to the Abbey of Gorze. Shortly afterwards Herimann restored him to his abbey of St-Arnoul.
Of his writings we have seven letters and a prayer of preparation for Mass in honour of St. Augustine. His style is good for the period and shows a considerable knowledge of literature. The first letter is the well-known address of congratulation to Gregory VII on his election to the papacy, reprinted by the Bollandists at the beginning of their commentary on the life of that pope. These remains were discovered by Mabillon at St-Arnoul and first printed by him in his "Analecta vetera", I (Paris, 1675), 247-286.
P.L., CL, 873-90; Hist. litt. de la France, VIII, 305; JAFFE (ed.), Mon. Gregoriana (Berlin, 1865).
Raymund Webster.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Wilton Abbey

From volume 15 of the work.
A Benedictine convent in Wiltshire, England, three miles from Salisbury. A first foundation was made as a college of secular priests by Earl Wulstan of Wiltshire, about 773, but was after his death (800) changed into a convent for 12 nuns by his widow, St. Alburga, sister of King Egbert. Owing to the consent given by this king he is counted as the first founder of this monastery. St. Alburga herself joined the community, and died at Wilton. King Alfred, after his temporary success against the Danes at Wilton in 871, founded a new convent on the site of the royal palace and united to it the older foundation. The community was to number 26 nuns. Wilton is best known as the home of St. Edith, the child of a "handfast" union between Edgar, King of the English (944-75), and Wulfrid, a lady wearing the veil though not a nun, whom he carried off from Wilton probably in 961. After Edith's birth, Wulfrid refused to enter into a permanent marriage with Edgar and retired with her child to Wilton. Edith, who appears to have been learned, received the veil while a child, at the hands of Bishop Ethelwold of Winchester, and at the age of fifteen refused the abbacy of three houses offered by her father. She built the Church of St. Denis at Wilton, which was consecrated by St. Dunstan, and died shortly afterwards at the age of twenty-three (984). Her feast is on 16 September. St. Edith became the chief patron of Wilton, and is sometimes said to have been abbess. In 1003 Sweyn, King of Denmark, destroyed the town of Wilton, but we do not know whether the monastery shared its fate. Edith, the wife of Edward the Confessor, who had ben educated at Wilton, rebuilt in stone the monastery which had formerly been of wood. In 1143 King Stephen made it his headquarters, but was put to flight by Matilda's forces under Robert of Gloucester. The Abbess of Wilton held an entire barony from the king, a privilege shared by only three other English nunneries, Shaftesbury, Barking, and St. Mary, Winchester. Cecily Bodenham, the last abbess, surrendered her convent on 25 March, 1539. The site was granted to Sir William Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke, who commenced the building of Wilton House, still the abode of his descendants. There are no remains of the ancient buildings.
DUGDALE, Monasticon Anglicanum, II (London, 1846), 315; HUNT in Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v. EDITH (London, 1888).
Raymund Webster.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Williram

From volume 15 of the work.
(WALTRAM, WILTRAM).
Scriptural scholar, b. in Franconia (near Worms), Germany; d. in 1085 at Ebersberg, Bavaria. He was a pupil of the celebrated Lanfranc, and, according to Tritheim, studied for some time in the University of Paris. Relinquishing the post of scholastic of the cathedral chapter of Bamberg, he retired to a monastery in Fulda. Soon, Henry III summoned him to the famous Benedictine abbey at Ebersberg, which he ruled with great success for thirty-seven years till his death. He is known principally as the author of a translation and paraphrase of the Canticle of Canticles. In the preface he laments the fact that in Germany grammar and dialectics are held in greater favour than the study of Holy Writ, and expresses his high appreciation of Lanfranc for having devoted himself to a deeper study of the Bible and drawn many German scholars to France. The pages of the work are divided into three columns: The first contains a Latin paraphrase in Leonine hexameters; the second, the text of the Vulgate; and the third, a German exposition in prose. From beginning to end, Williram applies his subject allegorically to Christ and the Church. The numerous still extant manuscripts bear witness to the favour with which the work was received. Hoffmann published two of them in his edition of Williram (Breslau, 1837).
SEEMULLER, Die Handschriften u. Quellen von Willirams deutscher Paraphrase des hohen Liedes (Strasburg, 1877); WALTER, Die deutsche Bibelubersetzung des Mittelalters (Brunswick, 1892); GOSCHLER, Dictionnaire theologique.
Charles F. Arnold.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Windsor

From volume 15 of the work.
A town of great antiquity, on the Thames, in Berkshire, England; quaintly rendered Ventus Morbidus in some medieval documents, the name being really from the Saxon Windels-or, "winding shore". The manor was granted by St. Edward the Confessor to the Abbey of Westminster, and the town became a free borough under Edward I. The chief interest of Windsor lies in the castle, one of the most famous royal residences in the world. There was a palace and stronghold here in the time of the Saxon Heptarchy, and the great mound on which stands the Round Tower (itself rebuilt by Edward III) is of this date. The castle, which was extensively added to by Henry III, has been for centuries the favourite residence of English kings, many of whom, including Edward III and Henry VI, were born there. A chapel existed in the castle from early times; but the present sumptuous Chapel of St. George, considered the finest example of perpendicular architecture in England, was built by Edward IV, who was buried in it, as were several of his successors. St. Edward's (now the Albert Memorial) Chapel was the burial place of Cardinal Wolsey, who constructed a magnificent tomb for himself. This chapel was used for Catholic worship in the reign of James II, who received the papal nuncio there in 1687. Under George IV nearly a million sterling was spent on altering and practically rebuilding the castle, according to the plans of Wyatville. Many royal marriages have taken place during the last century in St. George's Chapel, which is a richly-endowed royal peculiar, served by a dean, a college of canons and minor clerics, and a staff of highly-trained choristers. The chapel is the headquarters of the Knights of the Garter (established by Edward III), for whom a special prayer is said at every service held within its walls.
D.O. HUNTER-BLAIR
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/William the Clerk

From volume 15 of the work.
French poet of the thirteenth century. Nothing is known of his life except that he was a clerk of Normandy. Among the works, which may be assigned to him with some certainty, are: "Bestiaire divin" (ed. Hippeau, Caen, 1853), a moral and theological treatise on natural history dealing with man and animals, probably composed about 1210, as the author, in his description of the dove, deplored the sad condition of the Church in England in 1208; "Besant de Dieu", an allegorical poem, composed in 1226 (ed. Martin, Halle, 1869); "Joies Nostre Dame" (ed. Reinsch in "Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie", III, 1879, p. 2); "Treis moz de l'evesque de Lincoln" (ibid.); "Vie de Tobie" (ed. Reinsch in Herrig, "Archiv", 1881). A legend of "St. Magdalen" is also credited to him. The "Roman de Tergus", which is connected with the romances of the Round Table, the "Fabliaux" (short stories), "Prestre et Alison", "Male Honte", and "La fille à la bourgeoise" are no longer regarded as his. Although he probably lived for a time in England, as many Norman clerks did, he did not use the Anglo-Norman dialect, but the French.
Histoire littéraire de la France, XXII, XXIII (Paris, 1856); SEEGER, Ueber die Sprache des Guillaume le Clerc de Normandie u. über den Verfasser u. die Quelle des Tobias (Halle, 1881); SCHMIDT, Guilliaume le Clerc de Normandie in Romanische Studien, IV (1881).
LOUIS N. DELAMARRE
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Williamites

From volume 15 of the work.
There were two minor religious orders or congregations of this name: (1) a Benedictine congregation, more often known by the name of its chief house, Monte Vergine (2) the foundations named after St. William of Maleval.
(1) Besides Monte Vergine, St. William of Vercelli founded a considerable number of monasteries, especially in the Kingdom of Naples, including a double monastery for men and women at Guglieto (near Nusco). Celestine III confirmed the congregation by a Bull (4 Nov., 1197). In 1611 there were twenty-six larger and nineteen smaller Williamite houses. Benedict XIV confirmed new constitutions in 1741 to be added to the declarations on the Rule of St. Benedict prescribed by Clement VIII. The mother-house, the only surviving member of the congregation, was affiliated to the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance in 1879. The community at Monte Vergine retains the white colour of the habit, which is in other respects like that of the black Benedictines. There are said to have been some fifty Williamite nunneries, of which only two survived at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The habit was white with a black veil, and their rule very severe in the matter of fasting and abstinence.
(2) This second congregation was founded by Albert, companion and biographer of St. William of Maleval, and Renaldus, a physician who had settled at Maleval shortly before the saint's death, and was called the Hermits of St. William. It followed the practice of that saint, and quickly spread over Italy, Germany, France, Flanders, and Hungary. The great austerity of the rule was mitigated by Gregory IX in 1229; at the same time many of the monasteries adopted the Benedictine Rule and others that of St. Augustine. When, in 1256, Alexander IV founded the Hermits of St. Augustine many of the Williamites refused to enter the union and were permitted to exist as a separate body under the Benedictine Rule. In 1435 the order, which about this time numbered fifty-four monasteries in three provinces of Tuscany, Germany, and France, received from the Council of Basle the confirmation of its privileges. The Italian monasteries suffered during the wars in Italy. The last two French houses at Cambrai and Ypres were suppressed by the Congregation of Regulars, while in Germany the greater number came to an end at the Revolution. The chief house at Grevenbroich (founded in 1281) was united to the Cistercians in 1628; the last German house ceased to exist in 1785. The habit was similar to that of the Cistercians.
I. HEIMBUCHER, Orden u. Kongregationen, I (Paderborn, 1907), 264, Regul= a SS. P. N. Benedicti cum antiquis. . .Declarationibus Cong. Montis Virginis a Cl= emente VIII praescriptis. Novae Constitutiones. . .a SS. D.N. Benedictio XIV conf= irmatae (Rome, 1741).
II. HEIMBUCHER, Orden u. Kongregationen, II (Paderborn, 1907), 180; HELYOT, Ordres religieux, VI (Paris, 1792), 142; HENSCHEN, De ordine eremitarum S. Guglielmi in Acta SS., Feb., II, 472-84. See also WILLIAM OF MALEVAL; HERMITS OF ST. AUGUSTINE.
Raymund Webster.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Wimborne Minster

From volume 15 of the work.
(Also WIMBURN or WINBURN).
Located in Dorsetshire, England. Between the years 705-23 a double monastery like the famous house of St. Hilda at Whitby was founded at Wimborne by Sts. Cuthburga and Quimburga (feast 31 Aug.), sisters of Ine, King of the West Saxons (688-726). The discipline of Wimborne which followed the Benedictine Rule was especially severe in the matter of the nuns' enclosure, into which not even prelates were allowed to enter. Under the Abbess St. Tetta, there were a large number of nuns, among them St. Lioba, who was summoned to Germany by St. Boniface to govern the convent at Bischoffsheim, and her companion St. Thecla, afterwards Abbess of Kitzingen. The monastery was probably destroyed by raiding Danes in the ninth century: every trace of the Saxon buildings has vanished and even the site of St. Cuthburga's Church is uncertain.
Secular canons were established at Wimborne either by King Edward the Confessor or one of his predecessors of the same name. The church was collegiate and a royal free chapel, and is so entered in Domesday Book. The list of the deans, who were of royal appointment, exists from 1224 to 1547. The establishment numbered 17 persons, a dean, 4 prebendaries, 3 vicars, 4 deacons, and 5 singing men. The deanery was in every case held in conjunction with some more important office. Reginald Pole was Dean of Wimborne from 1517 to 1537, being but 17 years of age on his appointment. In 1547 the college was suppressed. The minster is now the Anglican parish church. Its extreme length is 198 feet. The width, exclusive of the transepts, varies form 23 feet in the nave to 21 in the choir and presbytery. There is a western tower 95 feet in height, and another above the transepts (84 feet). The thirteenth-century spire which formerly crowned this latter tower fell in 1600. The present church is the result of gradual growth during the church-building centuries up to the Reformation, without any of the great rebuilding operations such as took place in churches possessing popular shrines or great revenues. The church has suffered considerably at the hands of nineteenth-century restorers. It contains the beautiful altar-tomb of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and Margaret his wife, the parents of the celebrated Lady Margaret, Foundress of Christ's and St. John's Colleges at Cambridge, and mother of King Henry VII. A small chained library dating from 1686 occupies a room over the vestry.
PERKINS, Wimborne Minster and Christ Church Priory (London, 1902); STANTON, Menology of England and Wales, 431; HUTCHINS, Hist. of Dorsetshire, II, 532; DUGDALE, Monasticon, II, 88; VI, 1452.
Raymund Webster.