Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/67

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FERMO

evangelized Caithness and established there the churches of Wick und Halkirk. Thence he crossed to Buchan in Alu'idccnshire and founded a church at Lungley, a village now oallcd St. Fergus. Lastly, he established a church at Glammis in Forfarshire. He went to Rome in 721 and was present with Sedu- lius and twenty other bishops at a synod in the basilica of St. Peter, convened by Gregory II. His remains were deposited in the church of Glammis and were the object of much veneration in the Mitldle Ages. The Abbot of Scone transferred his head to Scone church, and encased it in a costly shrine. There is an entry in the accounts of the treasurer of James IV, October, 1503, "An offerand of 13 shillings to Sanct Fergus' heide in Scone". The churches of Wick, Glammis, and Lungley had St. Fergus as their patron. His festival is recorded in the Martyrology of Tallaght for the Sth of September but seems to have been observed in Scotland on the 18th of November.

Kelly (ed.), Martyrology of Tallaght, 33; O'HanloN. Lives of Irish Sts., 8 Sept., IX, 196; Breviary of Aberdeen, Latin text (London, 1S54); Skene, Celtic Scotland (Edinburg, 1877), IL 232.

Fergus, Saint, Bishop of Duleek, d. 778, mentioned by Duald MacFirbis, Annals of the Four Masters, Annals of Ulster.

Fergus, S.\int, Bishop of Downpatrick, d. 583. He was si.xth in descent from Coelbad, King of Erin. He built a church or monastery called Killmbian, identi- fied by some as Killyban, Co. Down, and afterwards was consecrated bishop and ruled the cathedral church of Druiraleithglais (Down). He was probably the first bishop of that see. His feast is kept on the 30th of March.

Ten saints of this name are mentioned in the mar- tyrology of Donegal.

CoLGAN. Ada .S.S. Hib.. 30 Mar.; O'Hanlon, op. cit.. 30 Mar.; Lanigan, Ecc. Wis/, of Ireland UJublin, 1829). II. 183.

C. MULCAHY.

Feria (Lat. for "free day"), a day on which the people, especially the slaves, were not obliged to work, and on which there were no court sessions. In ancient Roman times the fe.riw publico;, legal holidays, were either stativoe, recurring regularly (e. g. the Saturnalia), conceptivce, i. e. movable, or imperativie, i. e. appointed for special occasions. When Christianity spread, the fericE were ordered for religious rest, to celebrate the feasts instituted for worship by the Church. The faithful were obliged on those days to attend Mass in their parish church ; such assemblies gradually led to mercantile enterprise, partly from necessity and partly for the sake of convenience. This custom in time introduced tho.se market gatherings which the Ger- mans call Messen, and the English call fairs. They were fi.xed on saints' days (e. g. St. Barr's fair, St. Germanus's fair, St. Wenn's fair, etc.).

To-day the terra feria is used to denote the days of the week with the exception of Sunday and Saturday. Various reasons are given for this terminology. The Roman Breviary, in the sixth lesson for 31 Dec, says that Pope St. Silvester ordered the continuance of the already existing custom, "that the clergy, daily ab- staining from earthly cares, would be free to serve God alone". Others believe that the Church simply Christianized a Jewish practice. The Jews frequently counted the days from their SabVjath, and so we find in the Gospels such expressions as una Sabhati and prima Sabbati, the first from the Sabbath. The early Chris- tians reckoned the days after Easter in this fashion, but, since all the days of Easter week were holy days, they called Easter Monday, not the first day after Easter, but the second feria or feast day; and since every Sunday is the dies Dominica, a lesser Easter day, the custom prevailed to call each Monday a feria secunda, and so on for the rest of the week.

The ecclesiastical style of naming the week days was adopted by no nation except the Portuguese, who

alone use the terms Segumta Feira etc. The old use of the word feria, for feast day, is lost, except in the derivative feriatio, which is equivalent to our of obliga- tion. To-day those days are called ferial upon which no feast is celebrated. Ferite are either major or minor. The major, which must have at least a com- memoration, even on the highest feasts, are the ferise of Advent and Lent, the Ember days, and the Monday of Rogation week; the others are called minor. Of the major ferice Ash Wednesday and the days of Holy Week are privileged, so that their office must be taken, no matter what feast may occur.

Dublin Hevie-w, CXXIV, 350; Wapelhorst, Compendium S. Liturgiw (New York, 1905); Heuser in Kirchenlex., s. v.

Francis Mershman.

Ferland, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine, French Cana- dian historian, b. at Montreal, 25 December, 1805; d. at Quebec, 1 1 January, 18G5. He studied at the col- lege of Nicolet and was ordained priest 14 September, 1828. He ministered to country parishes until 1841, when he was made director of studies in the college of Nicolet. He became its superior in 1848. Being named a member of the council of the Bishop of Quebec, he took up his residence in that city, where he was also chaplain to the English garrison. From his college days he had devoted himself to the study of Canadian history; the niuiierous notes which he col- lected had made him one of the most learned men of the country. It was not, however, until he had reached the age of forty that he thought of writing a history of Canada. In 1853 he published his " Obser- vations sur I'histoire eccl6siastique du Canada", a refutation and criticism of the work of the Abb6 Bras- seur de Bourbourg ; it was reprinted in France in 1854i In the latter year he published " Notes sur les r^gistres de Notre-Damede Quebec", a second edition of which, revised and augmented, appeared in the " Foyer Cana- dien" for 1863. In 1855 he was appointed profe.s.sor of Canadian history at the University of Laval (Quebec), and went at once to France to collect new documents to perfect him in his work. He returned in 1857, bringing with him valuable notes. The pub- lic courses which he delivered from 1858 to 1862 at- tracted large audiences, and his lectures, printed as "Cours d'Histoire du Canada", established Ferland 's reputation. The first volume appeared in 1861; the second was not published till after the author's death in 1865. This work, written in a style at once simple and exact, is considered authoritative by competent judges. It is, however, incomplete, ending as it does with the conquest of Canada by the English (1759). Ferland aimed above all at establishing the actual facts of history. He desired also to make known the work of the Catholic missions. His judgments are correct and reliable. Ferland also published in the "Soirees Canadiennes" of 1863 the "Journal d'un voyage sur les cotes de la Gaspesie", and in " Littera- ture Canadienne" for 1803 an "Etude sur le Labra- dor", which had previously appeared in the " Annales de I'Association pour la Propagation de la Foi". For the "Foyer Canadien" of 1863 he wrote a "Vie de Mgr Plessis", Bishop of Quebec, translated later into English.

Legare, Notice biographique in Courrier du Canada, 13 Jan., 1865; Gerin-Lajoie, L'abbe J.~B.-A. Ferland in Foyer Cana- dien, III (1865), i-l.\xii; Royal, Cours d'histoire du Canada de Ferland; Revue Canadienne (1864), IV, 552.

J. Edmond Roy.

Fermo, Archdiocese op (Firmana), in the prov- ince of Ascoh Piceno (Central Italy). The great antiq- uity of the episcopal city is attested by the remains of its Cyclopean walls. It was the site of a Roman colony, established in 264 b. c, consisting of 6000 men. With the Pentapolis it passed in the eighth century under the authority of the Holy See and underwent thenceforth the vicissitudes of the March of Ancona. Under the predecessors of Honorius III the bishops of