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 WOUTERS

715

WULFEN

divisions, each composed of five Glories in honour of Christ's Wounds and one Ave in commemoration of the Sorron-fvil Mother. The blessing of the beads is reserved to the Passionists.

The Feast. — The earliest evidence of a feast in honour of the Wounds of Christ comes from the monastery of Fritzlar, Thuringia, where in the four- teenth century a feast was kept on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Cliristi. The Office was rhythmical (Dreves, "Anal, hymnica", XXIV, 20; Grotefend, "Zeitrechnung", II, 1, 11.5). In the fifteenth century it had spread to different countries, to Salisbury (England), Huesca and Jaca (Spain), Vienna, and Tours, and was included in the Breviaries of the Carmelites, Franciscans, Dominicans, and other orders (Dreves, op. cit., XXIV, XL, XLII). The Feast of the Five Wounds, celebrated since the Middle Ages at Evora and elsewhere in Portugal on G Febru- ary (at Lisbon on the Friday after Ash- Wednesday), is of historical interest. It commemorates the founding of the Portuguese kingdom in 1139, when, before the battle on the plains of Ourique, Christ appeared to Alfonso Henriquez, promising victory over the Moors and commanding him to insert into the coat of arms of the new kingdom the emblem of the Five Wounds ("Propr. Portugallia;" in Weiss, "Weltgeschichte", III, 251). This feast is cele- brated to-day in all Portuguese-speaking countries. The Proprium of Venice of 17(56, which contains perhaps the earliest series of movable feasts in honour of Christ's Passion, has the Feast of the Five Wounds on the second Sunday in March; it was granted in 1S09 to Leghorn for the Friday after Ash-Wednesdaj', on which day it is still kept in many dioceses of Tu.siany, and elsewhere (Alexico). Since 1831, when the feasts in honour of the Passion were adopted at Rome by the Passionists and the city, this feast was assigned to the Frida.v after the third Sunday in Lent. The Office is one of those bequeathed to us by the Middle Ages. As this feast is not cele- brated in the entire Church, the Office and Mass are placed in the appendix of the Breviary and the Missal.

NiLLES, KaUndarium manuale, II, 140; Heller in Zeitschr. fur kalh. Theol. (1895), 5S2-.5; Benedict XIV. De fesHs D. N. J. Christi, I, 279; Berinqeh, Die AblOase (Paderborn, 1906). 173, 175, 277, 382.

F. G. HOLWECK.

Wouters, G. FIenrt, historian, b. at Oostham, Belgian Limburg, 3 May, 1802; d. 5 January, 1872. In 1829 he became professor of moral theologj', and later also of ecclesiastical history at the University of Liege. At the reorganization of the University of Louvain in 1834 he became professor of ecclesiastical history to the faculty of theolog>', which post he filled until 1871. The first edition of his "Historic eccle- siasticae compendium" appeared in three volumes (1842-93). In its time it had wide renown, and became a classical handbook in many countries. It was .supplemented by the "Dissertationes in selecta historia' ecclesiast ica> capita ", four volumes (1868-72), which was to treat at greater length controverted questions from the earliest times to the Council of Trent, but which stopped at the fourteenth oenturj'. He drew his inspiration from Baronius, Pagi, and NoEl Alexandre. He regarded ecclesiastical history as an auxiliary .science to theology.

JCNOMANS in Annuaire de I' UnitersM (Louvain. 1873).

R. Maere.

Wrenno, Roger, Ven-erable. ScbThulis, John, Ve.ner.\ble.

Wright, Peter, Venerable, martyr, b. at Slipton, Northamptonshire, 1003; suffered at 'Tyburn, 19 May, 16.51. After spending ten years in a countn,- solici- tor's office he enlisted in the English army in Hol- land, but deserted after a month, and for two years

remained in the Flemish Jesuit Seminary at Ghent. In 129 he entered the novitiate of the Society at Watten. After holding various offices at Liege and Saint-Omer he became chaplain to Sir Henry Gage's English regiment in the service of Spain. When Gage returned to England in the spring of 1644, Wright went with him and was present at the reUef of Basing House, the scat of John, .5th Marquess of Winchester. On Gage's death (13 January, 1645), at which he was present, Wright became themarquess's chaplain in his London house, where he was arrested on Candlemas Day, 1651. Committed to Newgate, he was eventually condemned at the Old Bailey under 27 Eliz., c. 2. His execution on Whit Monday took place before over twenty thousand spectators. He was allowed to hang till he was dead.

Foley. Records of the English Promnce S.J. (London, 1877-83), II, 506-65; VII, 870; Challoner. MissionaTij Priests, II, no. 189; Stanton, Menology (London, 1887), 218; Cooper in Diet. Nat. Biog., a. v.

John B. Wainewright.

Wright, WILLI.4M, b. at York, 1562; d. 18 Jan., 1639. Though he came late (23) to his studies, he then made such good progress that he was many years professor of philosophy at Gratz and Vienna. Coming to help the English Mission in the great troubles that followed the Powder Plot, he became chaplain to the Gages at Hengrave Hall, Suffolk. But he was soon aiTested and thrown into the Tower (July, 1607), and later into the White Lion Prison. "This was the opportunity of his life. The Cathohcs had been discouraged by the fall of the archpriest Blackwell, who had taken, and publicly commended, the condemned oath of allegiance (see Oaths, English Post-Reformation, II); Wright's brother Thomas, an ex-Jesuit and a brilliant scholar, sup- ported him (see bibliography). William Wright dis- puted publicly against the oath with great vigour and effect; and the Gages, whom he had instructed, cour- ageously refused to take it. Wright's fine qualities drew to him many converts. When the dreaded "plague" ravaged London and attacked the prison, he nursed the sick, buried the dead, and remained almost the only person untouched. In the confusion which followed this visitation he escaped to Leices- tershire, where he organized a series of missions, which remained as he left them for many generations. From 1612 onwards he took to writing, and some twelve small volumes are ascribed to him: three of controversy, the rest translations of the works of Becan, Lessius, etc.

Foley. Records of Ike English Province S.J., II. 275-86. VII, 871; Cooper in Did. Sat. Biog., a. v.; Gillow, Bibl. Did. Eng. Cath., a. v.; Sommervogel. Bibl. de la C. de Jfsus. For Thomas Wright, see: Foley, Records, VII, 1460: Jessop. Letters of H. Walpole (1873), 55; Calendars of Stale Papers Domestic (1595—).

J. H. Pollen.

Wulfen, Franz Xaveb Freiherr von, botanist, b. at Belgrade, 5 November, 1728; d. at Klagenfurt, 17 March, 1805. He was the .son of the Austrian lieutenant field-marshal. Christian Friedrich von Wulfen. On completing his studies at Kaschau, Hungary, he joined the Jesuit Order in 1745, and resided as student and teacher (chiefly of niathematica and physics) at V'ienna, Graz, Neusohl, (Jorz, Laibach, and (from 1764) Klagenfurt. .Vfter the .suppression of the Jesuits in 1764 he remained at Klagenfurt until his death. The monument erected to him in 1838 describes him as "equally great as priest, scholar and man". From his twenty-second year he devoted himself with special zeal to botany. His unusual talents, his great exactness in observation and descrip- tion, and his researches, carried on tirelessly for over fifty years, constitute him one of the leading botanists of the post-1, inniean epoch (the last third of the eigh- teenth cen(urj-). He was a member of the academies or scientific aocieties of Berlin, Erlangen, Gottingen,