The Mass:  A Study in the Roman Liturgy
Our author, the son of a converted Anglican clergyman, was born in 1874. He was educated in England by the Jesuits and pursued further studies in Rome at the Scots College, finishing his theological courses at the University of Innsbruck.  After ordination he was assigned various curateships, from one of which he managed to take a year sabbatical in Syria. Already a Hebraic scholar, here he perfected his  fluency with the Arabic language. Fortescue was proficient in a variety of subjects including ecclesiastical history, Greek  patrology, linguistics, dogmatic theology and, especially, liturgical history. In addition to these and many other subjects, he was a gifted choirmaster.  Adrian Fortescue did much in his native country to publicly defend the papacy, specifically in one aspect, papal infallibility. Fortescue died young, age forty-nine, from cancer.