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 BUTTRESS

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BYRD

the thirty-sixth year of her abbatial dignity. King James II, and more especially his Queen, Mary of Modena, were great benefactors and friends of Abbess Butler, and of the Irish convent of Ypres, which she saved from extinction and which has survived ever since. It enjoys the distinction of being the only religious house in all the Low Countries which re- mained standing during the storms of the French Revolution and of being the only Irish Abbey of the Benedictine Order.

Nolan, Hist, of Royal Irish Abbey of Ypres (from MSS. in Convent archives).

Patrick Nolan.

Buttress, a pilaster, pier, or body of masonry projecting beyond the main face of the wall and intended to strengthen the wall at particular points and also to counterbalance the thrust of a roof or its vaulting. The term "counterfort" is used when the projection is on the inside. A flying buttress is an arch, resting at one end on a detached pier and it carries the thrust of the nave vault over the aisles or cloister. Thomas H. Poole.

Buxton, Christopher, Venerable, priest and martyr, b. in Derbyshire; d. at Canterbury, 1 October, 158S. He was a scholar of Ven. Nicholas Garlick at the Grammar-School, Tideswell, in the Peak District, studied for the priesthood at Reims and Rome, and was ordained in 1586. He left Rome the next year, and soon after his arrival in England was apprehended and condemned to death for his priesthood. He suf- fered at Oaten Hill, Canterbury, together with Vener- ables Robert Wilcox and Edward Campion. Being so young, it was thought that his constancy might be shaken by the sight of the barbarous butchery of his companions, and his life was offered him if he would conform to the new religion, but he courageously answered that he would not purchase a corruptible life at such a price, and that if he had a hundred lives he would willingly surrender them all in defence of his faith. While in the Marshalsea Prison he wrote a "Rituale", the MS. of which is now preserved as a relic at Olney, Bucks. He sent this MS. to a priest, as a last token of his friendship, the day before he was taken from the prison to suffer martyrdom.

Challoner, Memoirs; Foley, Records; Roman Diary (Lon- don, 1880); Morris, Catholics of York.

Bede Camm.

Buxtorf, Family op. See Hebrew Language.

Buys, Pierre. See Btjsee.

Byblos, a titular see of Phoenicia. Byblos is the Greek name of Gebal "The mountain", one of the oldest cities in Phoenicia Prima, quoted in an Egyp- tian inscription as early as 1550 B. c. Its inhabitants were skilled in stone and wood-working (III Kings, v, 18) and in shipbuilding (Ezech., xxvii, 9). It was governed by kings, the last of whom was de- throned by Pompey. It is celebrated chiefly for its temple of Adonis, or Thammouz, whose voluptuous worship spread thence over Greece and Italy. It was the native place of Philo, a Greek historian and grammarian. As a Christian see it was suffragan to Tyre and according to one tradition, its first bishop was John Mark, the companion of St. Paul and St. Barnabas. Five other bishops are known before 553 (Lequien, Or. Chr., II, 821). The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 551 (Malalas, Chronogr., XVIII, P. G., XCVII, 704) and was in ruins as late as 570 (Pseudo-Antoninus, ed. Geyer, 159). The Crusaders took it in 1104; it then had a Greek bishop, but he was obliged to yield his see to a Latin successor, and from 1130 to 1500 about twenty Latin bishops arc known (Lequien, Or. Chr., III. 1177; Eubel, Hier. Cath., I, 139; II, 119). Many Latin bishops are mentioned in " Revue Benedic- tine", 1904, 98, sqq.; 1907, 63, so,. The modern Arabic name is Gebail. It is a mere village with

about 1,000 inhabitants, almost all Christians (650 Maronites). There are thirteen churches; three of them are very beautiful and trace their origin to the Crusades. There is also at Byblos a castle of the same time, likewise some ruins of temples of Adonis and Isis. Gebail is yet a diocese for the Orthodox Greeks. For the Catholic or Melchite Greeks, the title of Byblos is united with Beirut, and for the Maronites with that of Batroun (Botrys).

R.ENAN, Mission rte Phenicie (Paris, 1864), 153-218; Le Mens littcraire et pittoresque (Paris, July, 1906); Ret, Etude sur leg monuments de V architecture des Croises en Syrie (Paris, 1871), 217-219; Rouvier, La necropole de Gebal-Byblos in Revue biblique, VIII, 553-565.

S. Vailhe.

Bye-Altar. — An altar that is subordinate to the central or high altar. The term is generally applied to altars that are situated in the bay or bays of the nave, transepts, etc. Thomas H. Poole.

Byllis, a titular see of Epirus Nova (Albania), whose title is often added to that of Apollonia among the suffragans of Dyrrachium (Durazzo). It was situated west of Avlona, on the coast, near the modern village Gradica, or Gradiste, a Slav name substituted in later episcopal "Notitise" for the old Illyrian name Byllis (Not. episc. Ill, 620; X, 702). Hierocles (653, 4) knows only of Byllis. Felix, Bishop of Apollonia and Byllis, was present at me Council of Ephesus, in 431. At Chalcedon in 451, Eusebius subscribes simply as Bishop of Apollonia; on the other hand, Philoeh'aris subscribes as Bishop of Byllis only in the letter of the bishops of Epirus Nova to the Emperor Leo, (458).

Lequien, Oriens Christ., II, 24S; Farlati, lllyricum sacrum, VII, 395; Gams, Series episcop., 394.

L. Petit.

Byrd, William, English composer, b. in London in 1542 or 1543; d. 4 July, 1623. He was the son of a musician, and studied music principally under Thomas Tallis. He became organist at Lincoln Cathedral in 1563, chorister in the Chapel Royal in 1570, and in 1575 received the title of Organist of the Chapel Royal without being obliged to perform the functions of that office. Byrd was the most distinguished con- trapuntist and the most prolific composer of his time in England. Fetis calls him the English Palestrina. He was the first Englishman to write madrigals, a form which originated in Italy in the thirteenth cen- tury, and received its highest development in the sixteenth century at the hands of Arcadelt and other masters. An organist and performer of the first order upon the virginals, Byrd wrote for the latter instrument an enormous number of compositions, many of which are played to-daj r. His chief signifi- cance lies, however, in his compositions for the church, of which he produced a great many. In 1607 he published a collection of gradualia for the whole ecclesiastical year, among which is to be found a three-part setting of the words of the multitude in the Passion according to St. John. A modern edition of this setting was published in 1899. In 1611 "Psalms, Songs and Sonnets, .Some Solemn, Others Joyful, Framed to the Life of the Words, Fit for Voyc.es or Viols, etc." appeared. Probably in the same year was issued " Parthenia", a collection of virginal music, in which Byrd collaborated with J. Bull and Orlando Gibbons. Three masses, for three, four, and five voices, respectively, belong to the com- poser's best period. The one for five voices was re- printed by the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1841, and in 1899 the same work was issued by Breitkopf and llartel. Two of his motets, "Domine, ne iras- caris" and "Civitas Sanctis tui", with English texts, are in the repertoire of most Anglican cathedrals. In spite of the harrowing religious conditions under which he lived, in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I, Byrd remained faithful to his principles and duties as a Catholic, as is shown in his life and by