Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/854

Rh ASHBY

776

ASHTON

0011,1903). 438-444; Gi!6bangkr. The Lilurtrical Year, Lent: Cabroi.. Livre de la priiVf aniigw (Paris, 1900). 393; Rock, Church of Our Fathers (London, 1904), IV, 73-75; Kctschker, Die hnligen Gebrauche (Vienna, 1843), 91-152.

Herbert Thurston.

Ashby, George, monk of the Cistercian Monas- tery of Jervaulx in Yorkshire, executed after the Pilgrimage of Grace, in the year 15.37. His name is found in several English martyrologies, but there is the utmost uncertainty as to the right form of his name, and as to the place and mode of his death. .'Vfter the "Pilgrims" had been persuaded to dis- perse. Henry VIII turned with fury upon the mon- asteries in whose favour the rising had taken place, and ordered liis soldiers "to take the abbots and monks forth with violence and to have them hanged without delay in their monks apparel ... for a terrible example to others." Whether Ashby suf- fered tlien, or whether he was executed in June, when his abbot, Adam Sedbergh, was put to death, is uncertain. Stow seems to allude to him when he says that one .\stbebe of JervauLx died with the Abbot of Sawley, at Lancaster, 10 March, 1537. It is also possible that the name may be taken from Astleby, one of the "Pilgrims" who is said to have visited Jervaulx. The fact that one or more monks of the abbey were executed for not embracing Henry's schismatical measures is not disputed.

CuDDEN, Modern British Martyrologji (1838). 71; Gillow, Diet. Eng. Cath., I, 73; Grey Friars' Chronicle in the Monu- menta Franciscana (Rolls Series), ii, 206.

J. H. Pollen.

Ashby, Richard. See Thimbleby.

Ashby, Thomas, suffered at Tyburn, 29 March, 1544. His name was originally contained in the process of the English Martyrs, as the fact of his execution for denying the King's Supremacy was mentioned by the chroniclers of the time and from them was recorded by Sander, though not by other Catholic writers. The "Promotor Fidei" rejected this as insufficient, and a somewhat ambiguous state- ment has since been found in the Grey Friars' Chron- icle; to wit, that Asliby was " sometime a priest and forsook it. " Possibly, therefore, while rejecting the Royal Supremacy, he did not accept the Pope's.

Stowe's Chronicle, 586; Holinshed's Chronicle (1586), II, 961; Grey Friars' Chronicle in the Monumenta Franciscana (Rolls Series), II, 206. Sander, Z>e Schismate Anqlicano. 201. J. H. Pollen.

Ashes. — It is not easy to arrive at the funda- mental conception of the liturgical use of ashes. No doubt our Christian ritual has been borrowed from the practice of the Jews, a practice retained in certain details of synagogue ceremonial to this day, but the Jewish custom itself needs explanation. A number of passages in the Old Testament connect a.shes (e/er IBS) with mourning, and we are told that the mourner sat or rolled him.self in, sprinkled his head or mingled his food with, "ashes", but it is not clear whetlier in these passages we ought not rather to translate ejcr as dust. The same phr.ases are used with the word ajar (isy) which certainly means du.st. It may be that the dust was originally taken from the grave, in token that the living felt him- self one with the dead, or it may be that humiliation and the neglect of personal cleanliness constituted the dominant idea; for a similar manifestation of grief was undoubtedly familiar among Arvan peo- ples, e. g. in Homer (Iliad, XVIII, 23). It seems less probable that tlio cleansing properties of ashes (though this;ds<) has been jiroposcd) are taken as significant of moral iiurilication. The chief founda- tion for this la.st suggestion is tlic Rite of the Red Heifer (Num., xix. 17) in which the ashes of the victim when mixed vnihx water had the ceremonial efiicaey of purifying the unclean (cf. Heb., ix, 13).

Be this a.s it may, Christianity at an earlv date

undoubtedly adopted the use of ashes as symbolical of penance. Thus Tertullian prescribes that the penitent must "live without joy in the roughness of sackcloth and the squalor of aslies" (De PoenitentiS, x); and many similar passages might be quoted from St. Cyprian and other early Fathers. Eusebius in his accoimt of the apostasy and reconcihation of Natalis describes him as coming to Pope Zephyrinus clothed in .sackcloth and sprinkled over with ashes {(XTTobbv KaTaTra(Tdfievov. Hist. Eccles., V, 28). This was the normal penitential garb, and in the expulsion of those sentenced to do public penance, as given in early pontificals, the sprinkhng of their heads with ashes always plays a prominent part. Indeed the rite is retained in the Pontificale Romanum to this day. With this garb of penance we must undoubt- edly connect the custom, so frequent in the early Middle Ages, of laying a dying man on the ground upon sackclotli sprinkled with ashes when about to breathe liis last. Early rituals direct the priest to cast holy water upon him, saying, " Remember that thou art dust and unto dust thou shall return." After which he asked: "Art thou content with sack- cloth and ashes in testimony of thy peiiance before the Lord, in the day of judgment?" And the dying man answered: "I am content." Ashes are also liturgically used in the rite of the dedication of a church, first of all to cover the pavement of the church upon which the alphabet is written in Greek and Latin letters, and secondly to mix with oil and wine in the water which is specially blessed for the consecration of the altars. This use of ashes is probably older than the eighth century.

Kaulen in Kirchenlex., s. v. Asche; Cabrol, Lii-re de la pri&e antique (Paris, 1900), 347-348; Jewish Encyclopedia, s. V. Ashes; Lesetre in ViG., Diet, de la Bible, s. v. Cendres. Herbert Thurston.

Ashley, Ralph, Venerable, martyr, a Jesuit lay- brother, first heard of, it seems, as cook at Douay College, which he left 28 .A.pril, 1590, for the Eng- lish College at Valladolid. Here he entered the Society of Jesus, but after a time returned to Eng- land because of ill-health. He fell in with Father Tesimond (Oreenway), who eulogizes very highly the courage he had displayed among the Dutch heretics, by wiiom he had been captured during his journey. He landed in England 9 March. 1598, and was sent to serve Fattier Edward Oldcorne. Eight years later the two were arrested at Hindlip, near Worcester, and were committed to the Tower, together with Father Garnet, and Nichol.is Owen, another laybrother, servant to Garnet. The two servants were terribly tortured, Owen dying of his torments, while the reticent answers and trembling signatures of Ashley's extant confessions bear elo- quent testimony to his constancy. He was ulti- mately remanded with OUlcorne to Worcester, where they were tried, condemned and executed together. 7 .\pril, 1606, giving an admirable ex- ample of heroically faithful service.

Foley. Records of the English Province S.J. (1878). IV, 71; Morris, Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers (1872), I, 162.

Patrick Ryan.

Ashton, John, an early Jesuit missionarj' in Maryland, b. in Ireland, 1742; d. in Maryland, 1814, or 1S15. He was one of the first priests to visit the Catholics of B.altimore. This was between the years 1776 and 1784, at which latter date a resident priest, Father Charles Sewall, was ap- pointed. The Jesuits at that time lived at White- marsh, about midway between Washington and Baltimore. The temporary church used by Father Ashton in Baltimore was an unfinished building, be- gun by an Irisliman named Fotternll. It stood near the present siteof Battle Monument, now the centre of civic and coMimercial activity. It was I lie first brick

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