Friedrich von Hugel, Cuthbert Hamilton Turner et les Bollandistes. Correspondance (review)

Abstract

Friedrich von Hugel, Cuthbert Hamilton Turner et les Bollandistes. Correspondance. Presentation, edition et commentaire par Bernard Joassart. [Tabularium hagiographicum, vol. 2.] (Brussels: Societe des Bollandistes. 2002.Pp. 157.40euro.) An adequate appreciation of this book requires reader to have some sense of Societe des Bollandistes and its extraordinary history. As late Benedictine historian Dom David Knowles noted forty years ago, Bollandists were the first great enterprise of co-operative scholarship in modern world; and theirs is only enterprise of seventeenth century which still continues in active function. Pere Charles De Smedt (1831-1911), group's president at beginning of twentieth century, modestly defined Societe in 1907 as an association of ecclesiastical scholars engaged in editing Acta Sanctorum ... a great hagiographical collection begun during first years of seventeenth century, and continued to our own day. The idea which eventually led to creation of this group enterprise came from Heribert Rosweyde (1569-1629), a Flemish Jesuit professor of philosophy in order's college at Douai, who used his spare hours to explore libraries of neighboring monasteries. His special interest in hagiography led him to discovery that ancient texts of manuscripts of saints' lives were quite different from elaborate effusions of their later, more literary editors. Rosweyde persuaded his superiors to allow him to collect and publish texts in their original forms. He created a plan and publicly announced his intentions, but died with not a single page ready for printer. The Belgian Jesuit provincial asked John van Bolland, SJ. (1596-1665), to examine Rosweyde's papers and suggest what to do with them. Bolland realized value of collection, persuaded his superior to make a commitment of manpower and space, completely reworked Rosweyde's original plan, and greatest hagiographical project ever imagined was underway. With publication of first volumes of texts, replete with introductory notes, scholarly world of Europe was both intrigued and supportive, and even leading Protestant scholars in those antagonistic times sent to these Jesuits manuscripts and scholarly communications. Bolland was soon joined by intellectually outstanding young Jesuit Godfrey Henschen (1601-1681), whose erudition and methodological improvements were typical of what was to come from group. Daniel von Papenbroeck (1628-1714), another brilliant scholar, joined Bolland and Henschen in 1659 and in 1660 began with Henschen a two-and-one-half-year tour of major European seats of ecclesiastical manuscripts to copy them for their work. Not one eighteenth-century Bollandist name matches abilities of aforementioned three, though work went forward satisfactorily, and then in 1773 Jesuit order was suppressed by pope. The Bollandists and their library and work were sheltered by Benedictine abbey of Caudenberg in Brussels and were supported by a stipend from government. However, when sympathetic Maria Theresa was succeeded by her son Joseph II, abbey was suppressed and Bollandists' library was ordered to be sold. The Premonstratensian abbey at Tongerloo arranged to take Bollandist library and printing equipment, and to shelter Bollandists themselves; but in 1794 French revolutionary Republic invaded Belgium, dispersing Premonstratensians and suppressing Bollandists. Although Jesuits were restored to Church in 1814, Bollandists were not reconstituted until 1837. Any group of scholars using best critical historical methods of day to interpret past is bound to run into opposition from vested interests, when some of latter's truths are demonstrated to be myths or even fabrications. Already in seventeenth century, when Daniel von Papenbroeck suggested that Carmelite rule did not date back to prophet Elias-a belief universally held by those religious-, he was attacked by dozens of scurrilous pamphlets and accused of heresy by Spanish Inquisition. …