Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/489

 BENAVIDES

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BENEDICT

there in 1615. At his suggestion the Congregation of St.-Maur was formed, to be for France what that of St.-Vannes was for Lorraine. Royal letters patent were obtained for it in 1618 and the project was warmly supported by Cardinal de Retz and others. B^nara's works include "Par&eses", "De I'esprit des ordres religieux", "Instructions Monastiques", "L'^loge B^n^dictin", and "Police r^guliere", all published in Paris between 1616 and 1619.

Tassin. Hist. Lit. Cong. S. Maur (Brus.^els. 1770); Sainte- Marthe, Gallia Christiana (Paris, 1744). VII. 474.

G. CiTRi.w Alston. Benavldes (Bbnavidez), Fray Alonzo, Arch- bishop of Goa in the Portuguese Indies. .Although a prelate of high rank, the life of Fray Alonzo de Benavides is very imperfectly known. He was born on the Island of San Miguel, professed in the Franciscan convent of Mexico in 1603, and, after acting as master of novices at the convent of Puebla, became Gustos of the Missions of New Mex- ico, returned to Spain in 1630 and there w-as in com- munication with the Venerable Maria de Agreda. Upon liis return to America he was made Archbishop of Goa. The date and place of his death are as yet unknown. Fray Alonzo de Benavides was indefati- gable in his efforts to promote the welfare, temporal and spiritual, of New Mexico. He it was who, through the agency of Fray Esteban de Perea, secured a rein- forcement of missionaries for the utterly neglected province. In order to excite interest in those remote regions, he wrote and published two booklets, full of exaggerations in regard to the number of Indians, but otherwise of the highest value for the ethnography and ethnology of New Mexico. They must be judged as "encouraging guides", embodying at the same time much accurate and valuable information gathered from personal knowledge. His account of the numbers of people and villages may have been influenced by data taken from Espejo but such mistakes do not affect the value of his writings in general. He published "Relacion de los grandes Tesoros espirituales y temporales descubiertos con el auxilio de Dios en el Nuevo Mexico", in 10.30, and is best know-n through the "Memorial que Fray Juan de Santander de la orden de San Francisco &c. pre- senta i la .Majestad Catolica del Rey" (Madrid, 1630; translated into various languages and repub- lished).

Memorial (Madrid, 1630); Pinei.o, Epitome (Madrid, 1738), II; Beristai.n, Bibliateca, etc. (Mexico, 1816). II; Vetancoort, Teatro Tnezicano (Mexico, 1698); especially Cronica de la Proiincia del Santo Evangelic de Mexico; Bandelieb, Final Report, etc., 1 and II.

Ad. F. B.^NDELIER.

Benda, a titular see of Albania. Its history is clo.sely connected with that of the Sees of Narenta and Mostar. Narenta, or in Italian Narona, rep- resents the ancient Chelmium, or Chulmia, and its bishop, a suffragan of Dyrrhachium (Durazzo), took the title of episcopus Stephanensis, or Stephaniacensis, the cathedral being dedicated to St. Stephen; this is the title of Cosmas at the council under Photius in 879. But as these bishops resided at Spalato, the title shortly became Spalatensis. About the middle of the fourteenth century, Narenta became the seat of a Latin bishopric, to which was united the See of Benda, the chief town in a district of this name, near Croia, in the pashalik of Scutari. Its bishop thus ob- tained a double title, epi-icopiis Benden.<iifi et Stephan- ensis, to which, about 1400, was added the title PW.s- censis, or Prisnensis, from Prisca, or Prisna, probably identical with the village Presa, or Press, in Albania. Be that as it may, these three titles were borne from the first by only one titular; Gams separates them wrongly (Series episcop., 422). The first titular was not, as is commonly said, the Dominican Petrus de Anagnia, but Demetrius, probably identical with the Franciscan Demetrius de Scutaro who is

mentioned in the BuUar. Franciscan. (VI, n. 662). From the seventeenth century the see became titular, probably because the bishops had transferred their residence to Mostar, on the left bank of the River Narenta, a see kno-mi as M andatriensis et Dumnensis.

Farlati, Ilhjricum sacrum. VII, 401-405; Eubel, Hierarchia Calholica medii a-vi, I, 488; II, 266 and 327.

L. Petit.

Benedetti, Pietro. See Ambarach, Peter.

Benedict I-X, Popes.— Of the first Pontiff who bore the name of Benedict practically nothing is known. The date of his birth is unknown; he d. 30 July, 579. He was a Roman and the son of Boniface, and was called Bonosus by the Greeks (Evagrius, Hist., V, 16). The ravages of the Lombards rendered it very difficult to communicate with the emperor at Con- stantinople, who claimed the privilege of confirming the election of the popes. Hence there was a vacancy of nearly eleven months between the death of John HI and the arrival of the imperial confirmation of Bene- dict's election, 2 June, 575. He reigned four years, one month, and twenty-eight days. Almost the only act recorded of him is that he granted an estate, the Massa Veneris, in the territory of Mintumae, to Abbot Stephen of St Mark's "near the walls of Spoleto" (St. Gregory I, Ep. ix, 87, 1. al. 30). Famine followed the devastating Lombards, and from the few words the Liber Pontificalis has about Benedict, we gather that he died in the midst of his efforts to cope with these difficulties. He was buried in the vestibule of the sacristy of the old basilica of St. Peter. In an ordination which he held in December he made fifteen priests and three deacons, and consecrated twenty-one bishops.

Benedict II, Saint, Pope, date of birth unknown; d. 8 May, 685; was a Roman, and the son of John. Sent when young to the schola cantorum, he dis- tinguished himself by his knowledge of the Scriptures and by his singing, and as a priest was remarkable for his humility, love of the poor, and generosity. He became pope 26 June, 684, after an interval of over eleven months. To abridge the vacancies of the Holy See which followed the deaths of the popes, he obtained from the Emperor Constantine Pogo- natus a decree which either abolished imperial confirmations altogether or made tliem obtainable from the exarch in Italy [cf. " Liber Diurnus RR. PP., ed. Sickel (Vienna, 1889), and Duchesne's criticism, "Le Liber Diurnus" (Paris, 1891)]. He adopted Constantine's two sons by receiving locks of their hair sent him by the emperor. To help to suppress Monothelism, he endeavoured to secure the subscriptions of the Spanish bishops to the decrees of the Sixth General Council (see ep. in P. L., XCVI, 423), and to bring about the submission to them of Macarius, ex-Bishop of Antioch. He was one of the popes w'ho favoured the cause of St. Wilfred of York (Eddius, "Vita Wilfridi", ed. Raine in "Historians of York", I, 62 sqq. Cf. Raine, "Lives of the Archbishops of York", I, 55 sqq.). Many of the churches of Rome were re- stored by him; and its clergy, its deaconries for the care of the poor, and its lay sacristans all benefited by his liberality. He was buried in St. Peter's.

Benedict III, Pope, date of birth unknown; d. 17 .\pril, 858. The election of the learned and ascetic Roman, Benedict, the son of Peter, was a troubled one. On the death of Leo IV (17 July, 855) Benedict was chosen to succeed him, and envoys were despatched to secure the ratification of the decree of election by the Emperors Lothaire and Louis II. But the legates betrayed their trust and allowed themselves to be influenced in favour of the ambitious and excommunicated Cardinal .\nastasius. The imperial missi, gained over in tuni by them, endeavoured to force Anastasius on the Roman