Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/869

 DIEGO

785

DIEMOTH

Diego y Moreno, Francisco Garcia, first bishop of California, b. 17 Sept., 1785, at Lagos in the state of Jalisco, Mexico; d. 30 April, 1846, at Santa Barbara. In 1801 he received the habit of St. Francis at the inis- sionarj' college of Guadalupe, Zacatecas, made his vows the following year and was ordained priest at Monterey, Nuevo Loon, 13 Nov., 1808. For the next twenty years Father Diego was mainly occupied in preaching missions, and during this period compiled a small work, "Metodo do Misionar", or "Method for Giving Missions". From 1816 to 1819 he was ma.ster of novices, in 1822 he was made tiiscrclns. and in Feb- ruary, 1832, guardian or superior of the missionary college of Guadalupe. At the request of the Mexican Government, which had resolved to expel all Spanish friars from California, the college, whose memljcrs were natives, in .\pril, 1832, sent eleven Mexican Franciscans to California, Father Diego going as com- missary. They reached Cape San Lucas in September,

1832, and Monterey, the head-quarters, in February,

1833. The Guadalupan friars took charge of the missions from San Antonio to Sonoma, and on 6 March, Father Diego chose Santa Clara for his field of labour. He remained here until the end of 183.5, when he visited Mexico to induce the Government to have a bishop appointed, in order to preserve the Church in California. On 19 Sept., 1836, the Mexican Government decided to petition the pope to create California a diocese and congress at the same time de- creed to pay the new bishop an annual salary of .56,000 until the diocese should have a sufficient income. Of the three candidates proposed by the metropolitan chapter on 22 June, 1839, the Mexican Government, 6 April, 1840, recommended Father Francisco Garcia Diego.

On 27 April Pope Gregory XVI withdrew California from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Sonora, and at the same time appointed Father Diego first Bishop of Fpper and Lower California with the see at San Diego. He was con.secrated at the Franciscan church of Guadalupe, Zacatecas, on 4 October, 1840, and on 11 Dec, ISI! , landed at San Diego. Owing to the poverty and insignificance of the place, he removed his residence to Santa Barbara on 11 Jan., 1842. When he arrived, there were only seventeen Franciscan Fathers, mostly aged and infirm, in charge of the twenty-one secularized Indian missions and six Span- ish towns. The bishop began with great plans and a sincere desire to promote the welfare of the Church in his territory. The Mexican Government had encour- aged him by giving him a fixed salary, and entrusting to him the management of the famous "Pious Fund", but in February, 1842, Presiilent Santa Anna confis- cated the Fimd. The bishop received no aid what- ever, so that he was obliged to depend upon the con- tributions from the few white settlers in the territorj', many of whom refused to pay the tithes which he had found it neccssan,' to impose. Nevertheless he opened the first seminarj' on tlie Pacific coast at the fonner mission of Santa Inez, about fifteen miles from the ocean and forty-five miles from Santa Barbara, made one visitation of all the churches in the diocese, and to some places even went a second time. Worn out by hardships and disheartened at the deplorable condi- tions which he could not remedy. Bishop Diego died, and was buried in the old Mission Santa Barbara.

Archives of the Archbishop (^an FranciHCo); Archives of the Mission of Santa Barbara: SoToMAYOR. Historin del Cofegio dc Guadalupe (Zacateoaa, 1S74): Reuss, Biographical Cycloptrdia (Milwaukee, 1S98): Bancroft, History of California (San Francisco, 1886), V; Enoeluardt, The Franciscans in Cali- fornia (1897).

Zephyhin Engelhardt.

Diekamp.Wii.HKi.M, historian, b. at Gcldern, 13

May, 18.54; d. at Rome. 25 Dec, 1885. Soon after

his birth the parents of Diekainp removed to Miinster

in Westphalia, where he made his collegiate studies

IV.— 50

(1867-72). From 1872 to 1875 he studied theology at Wiirzburg and at Miinster. Feeling uncertain, how- ever, as to his ecclesiastical calling, he abandoned his desire of entering the priesthood, and took up the study of philology. In 1877 he graduated as doctor of j)hilosophy with the dissertation: " Widukind, der Sachsenftihrer nach Geschichte imd Sage" (Miinster, 1877). Excessive study led to grave pulmonary dis- ease, in spite of which he did not spare himself. For some time he taught in the public schools of Mtuister, Arnsberg, and Aachen, developing in the meantime his scientific historical training. An excellent evi- dence of this was his "VitseS. Ludgeri" (Geschichts- quellen des Bistvmis Miinster, IV, Munster, 1881). In 1881 the West f ill ischer Verein fiir Geschichte und Al- tertumskunde confided to him the contiiuiation of the " Westfiilisches Urkundenbuch ". Thereupon he re- turned to Munster and in 1882 he became Privatdo- zent for history at that academy. Previously, how- ever, he spent a year at Vienna for improvement in diplomatics at the " Institut fiir oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung" under the direction of Professor Sickcl. At Easter, 1883, he began his teaching at Miinster, continuing at the same time his historical in- vestigations, specially on Westphalian documents, the history of the papal chancery, and ])ai)al tliplomatics. In 1885 he published at Miinster the first part of the supplement of the "Westfiilisches L^rkimdenbuch ". In the autumn of this year he went to Rome, chiefly to collect in the Vatican archives the material for the large works he had in mind. But typhoid fever car- ried him off in the midst of his labours. He was buried in the German Campo Santo near St. Peter's. Diekamp also published between 1878 and 1885 sev- eral iitiportant studies in different reviews concerning the history of the Mi^MIr A-r. :imi! diplomatics or offi- cial style of the nn' I i' ii P i|' i! ^liirllllLCntS.

HtiLSKAMpin LiV.i,/ 'i. -jj I ssO), 1-10; Schulte

in Historisches JahrbtuU il^M.ir. JtlO J,,; Dahlmann in Allge- meine deutsche Biographie, Aachlrdge bis IHV'J (Leipzig, 1903), XLVII, 679 sq.

J. P. KiRSCH.

Diemoth, an old German word for the present "Denuith", the English "humility", was the name of a pious recluse at the monastery of Wessobrunn in Upper Bavaria, b. about 1060 of a noble Bavarian or Swabian family; d. 30 March, probably in 11,30. At an early age she entered the Benedictine nunnery which was connected with the Benerlictine monastery of Wessobrunn. After a long period of severe proba- tion in the nunnery she obtained permission to live the life of a recluse and, following the custom of many recluses of those times, had herself enclosed in a cell adjoining the church, where she spent the remainder of her life in prayer and in transcribing valuable books. On account of her exceptionally beautiful handwriting she was styled the beautiful scribe. She copied about 45 volumes the titles of which are given by Becker in his Catalogi bibliothecarum antir/ui (Bonn, 1885), 155-136. The most important arc: the Bible, the Moralia and other works of St. Gregory the Great, 7 works of St. Augustine, 4 of ,St. Jerome, 2 of Origen, and about 15 liturgical works. Diemoth was a great friend of the Blessed Herluka with whom she ex- changed numerous letters while the latter was a re- cluse at the neighbouring monastery of Epfach. The letters were long preserved at the monastery of Bem- ried where Herluka spent the last years of her life, but they unhappily fell a prey to the ravages of the Swedes during the Thirty Yeare War. A few of Dicmoth's manuscripts are .stUl preser\'ed at the iStaatsbibliothck in Munich, whither they were transferred after the secularization of Wessobnmn in 1803. Diemoth was buried in the basilica of Our Lady at Wessobrunn, aside of the bodies of Abbot Thiento and his six com- panions, who suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Hungarians in 955. In 1709 her remains were trans-