Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/587

 BERTHA

519

BERTHOLD

in ViG.. Diet, de la Bible; Smith in Encyc. Bib. (New York, 1899); Hull in Hast., Diet, of Bible (New York, 1903).

John F. Fenlon. Bertha. — Of the various holy women bearing the name of Bertha, five are more particularly worthv of notice. I. Berth.^, Queen of Kent, d. c. 612. She was a Frankish princess, daughter of Charibert and the pious Ingoberga. In marrying the pagan King Ethelbert of Kent, she brought her chaplain Liud- hard with her, and restored a Christian church in Canterburj-, which dated from the Roman occupa- tion, dedicating it to St. Martin. The present St. Martin's at Canterburj' occupies the same site. St. Augustine, who was sent by Gregorj- the Great to preach the Gospel in England in 596, "no doubt owed much of his favourable reception to the influence of Bertha. St. Gregory in 601 addressed to her a letter of thanks, which is still preserved. It is printed in Haddan and Stubbs, III, 17. Ethelbert himself was baptized on Whitsunday in 597, and Canterburj' became the mother-church of England. Bertha was sometimes styled "Saint", but there is no clear evi- dence of cultus. (See, on tliis point, the poems of Reginald of Canterburj' in the " Neues Archiv ", xiii.) Fuller accounts of Bertha will be found in Lingard, "Anglo-Saxon Church;" " Diet. Nat. Biog.", Plummer, "Bede", and Routleclge, "Church of St. Martin".

II. St. Berth.4, virgin and martj-r, Abbess of Val d'Or, near Avenaj-, Reims, d. about 690. She was wife of St. Gumbert, Lord of Champenois, a nobleman of royal blood. He built a nunnerj- for liis wife and her maidens at Avenaj', and retired himself to a monastery on the coast, where he was soon afterwards put to death bj- pagan marauders. When the people of Avenaj' suffered from lack of water, St. Peter appeared to Bertha and showed her a field where there was a good spring. This she bought for a pound of silver. It became a holj' well which cured diseases and supplied both her o\\'u nuns and the hamlet of Avenaj' with water. Bertha was martjTed by Gumbert's relatives, who were indimant at the distribution of his monej' to the poor. Whether the abbej' founded at .\venav followed the Benedictine or the Colmnban Rule, does not seem certain even to Mabillon. The whole legend in fact is very late and unreliable. St. Bertlia's feast is on the 1st of May. (See Acta ,S.S. for that day.)

III. St. Berth.\, Abbess of Blangj' in Artois, d. about 725. She was the daughter of Rigobert, Count of the Palace under Clovis II. and married Siegfried, a relation of the king, .\fter twentj- j-ears. when he died, she determined to found a nunnerj-. Two build- ings which she constructed fell down, but an angel in a \'ision guided her to another spot, and there after manj' difficulties a nunnerj' was built, which she en- tered with her two elder daughters, Deotila and Gertrude. A still later legend represents this Ger- trude as much persecuted bj' the attentions of a great noble, Roger, who wished to marrj' her bj' force, but she was sa\ed from his \'iolence bj' her mother's firm courage and trust in God. Some time before her death Bertha is said to have resigned her office of abbess and to have shut herself up m a little cell built against the church wall. But the whole story of Bertha, as Mabillon and the Bollandists agree, is of verj' late date and historically worthless. Her feast is kept on t he 4t h of July. (See Acta SS. for that day, and D^cobert, "Ste. Berthe et son Abbayede Blangy", Lille, 1892.)

IV. Blessed Berth.\ de Bardi, abbess, b. in Florence, date uncertain; d. 24 March, 1163. She ■was the daughter of Lothario di Ugo, Count of Vemio, and is ordinarilj' called Bertha de Bardi, but the name should probablj- be d'Alberti. She joined the order of Vallombrosa, a branch of the Bene- dictines, at Florence, but she was soon sent to govern and reform a convent of the order at CavTiglia in

Valdamo, where she lived famous for miracles until her death. (See Acta SS. for that day, and Soldani, "Vita di S. Berta", Florence. 1731.)

V. Blessed Berth.\ de M-\rb.us, d. 1247. She was a Cistercian nun, who became the first abbess of a convent which was founded bj' Jane, Countess of Flanders, in 1227 at Marquette or Marchet, near Lille. She died on IS Julj', and is briefly noticed on that day in the Acta SS. Bertha is called Blessed by the Cistercian chronicler, Henriquez, but the evi- dence of cultus is very slight.

DuxB.iR, Dictionary of Saintly Women (Londor, 1904); Chev.vlier, Repertoire des sources historioues: Bio-Bibliooraphie (Paris, 1905).

Herbert Thurston'.

Berthier, GuiLL.^riiE-FRAXfois, a Jesuit professor and writer, b. at Issoudun, 1704; d. at Bourges, 1782. He taught philosophy at Rennes and Rouen, and the- ologj' at Paris. From 1745 to 1762 he was editor of the "Memoires de Tr^voux", and because of his powerful opposition to the infidel " encj'clop^distes " was bitterlj' attacked, notablj- bj' Voltaire. Between 1745 and 1749 he published volumes XIII to XVIII of the historj' of the French Church (1320-1559). The previous volumes had been prepared bj' Fathers Longueval (I-VIII). Fontenai (IX, X, and part of XI), and Bnunoy (end of XI and XII). In 1762, when the Societj' of Jesus was suppressed in France, the Dauphin appointed him tutor of his sons and librarian of the court librarj-, but two j-ears later his position at court became so disagreeable that he left France and spent the following ten j'ears in Germany. On his return, in 1774, he retired to Bourges. These J'ears of retirement were spent in studj' and writing. After his death several of his works were published by Father de Querbeuf: (1) A translation of the Psalms with notes (8 vols.); this was often reprinted. (2) Five volumes on Isaias. (3) Five volumes of "Reflexions Spirituelles".

De Querbeuf in Psaumes traduits, preface; Sommervogel, Bibl. de la c. de J., I. 1377 with complete bibliography; Brucker in Diet, de thiol, eath., s. v.

John Corbett.

Berthold, Bishop, Apostle of the Livonians, killed 24 Julj', 1198, in a crusade against the pagan Livonians who threatened destruction to all Chris- tians that lived in their territorj'. He was pre\-iously Abbot of the Cistercian monasterj' of Lockum in Hanover. At the death of Meinhard, the first Bishop of Livonia (c. 1196), Archbishop Hartwig of Bremen, to whose pro\-ince belonged the newly converted countries along the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, appointed Abbot Berthold successor. It seems \erj' probable that, as Damberger asserts in liis "Sj'nchronistische Geschichte der Kjrche und der Welt im Mittelalter", when Meinhard came to Bremen in 1186 to obtain help in his apostolic labours in Livonia, Berthold joined the band of miasionaries who accompanied liim thither. On this assumption, Berthold had been working ten J'ears as a missionarj' among the Livonians when he became their second bishop and was, therefore, well acquainted with his field of labour.

The Livonlan pagans were fanaticallj' opposed to Christianitj'. Berthold's predecessor, assisted by merchants from Bremen and Liibeck and a few converted natives, had built fortifications along the River Diina, where the Christians held their religious services and could protect them- selves against the fury of the pagans. Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Berthold tried to gain their confidence and good will bj' kindness. At first they appeared to become less hostile, but soon their old hatred revived. When Berthold attempted to bless the Christian cemeterj' at Holm, their pagan fanaticism broke loose in all its fury and they decided either to burn the bishop together