Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/524

 MABnOOION

481

MAOAO

MahitUm el la aocUU de Vabbaye de Sainl/Jermttin-^eB'Prfe, ieeJrl707 (Paris, 1888); Didio, La QuerelU d§ MabiUtm ti de VahbS De Rand (Amiens. 1892) ; Jadart, Dom Jean MabiUon iteSi-1707) In Trav. de VAcad. de Reims, LXTV (Reims, 1877- 8). 49-324; Kckula, Die Mauriner Aueoahe dee Ati^uaUnue in SiUunaeberiehU dee Kais. Akad. der Wieeenech. in Wten, CXXI, CXXII, CXXVIL CXXXVIII (Vienna, 1890-8); Laubmann in Hbrzoo and Hauck, Real-encyklopddiet s. v.; Pes, BMia- theea BenedieUno-Mauriana, I (AugsburK; 1716), 98-217; Ruin ANT. i46r^ delaviede Dom Jean MabxlUm (PAris, 1709); Tabsin, Hietoire LitUraire de la Congriqation de Saint-Maur (Brussels, 1770), 205-209; Weiss m mzchaud, Biographie UnivereeUe, a. v.

Leslie A. St. L. Toke.

Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh tales in prose. The word is a derivation of mab, "son"^ rnabinogy "a student in the bardie caste", mabinogi (pi. mabinogion), "a tale belonging to the mabinog's repertoire'*. The Mabinogion are found in the " Red Book of Hergest", a large fourteenth-century manu- script kept at Jesus College, Oxford. The stories were probably drawn up in their present shape towards the end of the twelfth century, but the legends themselves are of much greater antiauity, some belonging even to the more distant past ot Celtic jpaffanism and to the period of (jaelo-Breton unity. (Jnly four of the tales m the collections are properly called Mabinogion, but the name is commonly given to the others as well. The •* Four Branches of the Mabinogi" (i. e. the Mab- inogion strictly so called), consisting of "Pwyll", "Branwen", "Manawyddan", and"Math", belong to the earliest Welsh cycle and have preserved, though in a lat<^ and degraded form, a large amount of the my- thology of the British Celts. In the " Four Branches" there is no mention of Arthur. Besides these four tales, the Mabinogion includes two from romantic British history, two more interesting ones ("Rhona- bwy's Dream ^' and "Kulhwch and Olwen"), "Talie- sin", and, finally, three tales: "Owen and Lunet", "Gereint and Enid", "Peredur ab Evrawc", which, though clearly of Anglo-Norman origin and showing a marked kinship with certain medieval French tales, were undoubtedly worked on a Celtic background. It was formerly believed that the Mabinogion were nothing more than children's stories, but it is now known that they were intended for a more serious purpose and were written by some professional man of letters, whose name we do not know, who pieced them together out of already existing material. They are admirable examples of story-telling and are of the greatest interest to the student of romantic literature and Oltic mythology.

The Welsh text has been printed in a diplomatic edition, "The Red Book of Hergest", by J. Rhys and J. Gwenogfryn Evans (Oxford, 1887), also in the three- volume ^ition (with English translation) by Lady Charlotte Guest (Llandovery, 1849); the translation alone appeared in an edition of 1879. Lady Guest's translation has been re-edited with valuable notes by Alfred Nutt (London, 1902). This is the most con- venient translation ; the fullest translation is in French by J. Loth, "Cours de litt^rature celtigue", vols. Ill and IV (Paris, 1889). The study by I. B. John, " Pop- ular Studies in Mythology, Romance and Folklore", no. 11, 1901, is an excellent introduction to the sub- ject.

Joseph Dunn.

Macao, Diocese of (Macaoensis), suffragan of Goa, founded 23 January, 1575, by the Bull, ''Super Specula Militantis Ecclesiae ", of Gregory XIII, with its see in the Portuguese settlement of Macao (or Macau), on the island of Heung-Shan, adjacent to the coast of the Chinese Province of Kwang-tung (see China, Map) . The name b>[ which this settlement nas long been currently Imown is supposed to be of Chi- nese origin, compounded of Ma, the name of a lo^ divinity, and gau, "harbour"; for this native name the Portufoiese vainlv attempted to substitute the IX.— 31

more Christian, but more unwieldiv, form, "ACidade do Santo Nome de Deus de Macau ". The commercial prosperity of Macao, once very considerable, has been almost extinguished in modern times by the rival British settlement of Hong Kong, planted, about 40 miles to the east, in the vear 1842. The ecclesiastical lurisdiction of Macao, taken from the earlier Diocese of Malacca, at first included the whole of the Chinese and Japanese Empires. This vast territory was reduced by the creation (1588) of the Diocese of Funay for Japan, and in 1676, after the Dioceses of Peking and Nan- king and the Vicariate Apostolic of Tonking had been created, the jurisdiction of Macao did not extend beyond the Chinese Provinces of Kwang-Si and Kwang-Tung. This territory has since been still more curtailed, while the jurisdiction of the see has been extended in Malaysia and Further India. The present effective jurisdiction of Macao comprises (1) the city of Macao and some small islands adjacent to it; (2) the District of Heung-Shan and part of that of San Ui; (3) the Prefecture of Shiu-Hen^ (twelve districts): (4; part of the Christian populations of Malac<^ aixi Singapore; (5) all the Portuguese part of the island of Timor.

At the end of the sixteenth century Christianity was making rapid progress at Macao, which city had become an important centre of missionary activity in the Far East, llere the Jesuits, the pioneers in this field, established the two great cvUeges of St. Paul and St. Joseph; the former — famous in missionary annals as " a seminar}' of martyrs " — ^was the principal college of the Province of Japan; the latter, of the Vice- Province of China. The Franciscan and Dominican friars, the Poor Clares, and the Augustinians soon had convents at Macao, the last-named founding the her- mitage of Nossa Senhora da Penha (Our Lady of the Peak). Other churches dating from this golden age of religion in Macao are the Cathedral, the Santa Casa de Misericord ia, the hermitage of Nossa Senhora de Guia, the sanctuary of St. James at the mouth of the har- bour, and the parish churches of St. Anthony and St. Lawrence. A severe blow was dealt to missionary enterprise in these regions by the Portuguese expulsion of the Society of Jesus (1762), in spite of which, how- everj and in the face of bitter persecutions, the Chinese missions, of which Macao had been the original point of departure, still numbered some 100,000 Christians at the end of the eighteenth century. Since that pe- riod the Portuguese Government while continuing its padroadOf or patronage of the Church, in the Asiatic possessions of Portugal, has at various times adopted a policy hostile to the religious orders in general, wnieh have been, in consequence^ expelled from Macao, as from other Portuguese temtory (see Pombal, Sebas- TiXo Jos^ DE Carvalho, Marques de; Portugal).

Of the twenty-one bishops of this see, perhaps toe most distinguished was the first, Melchior M. Cameiro, who was also one of the eariiest fathers of the Society of Jesus. He had been confessor to St. Ignatius I^oy- ola, rector of the college of Evora, and, after holding several other important posts in his order, was made titular Bishop of Nicsa. coadjutor to the Patriarch of Ethiopia, and (1566) administrator of the missions of C^na and Japan. He occupied the See of Macao from its foundation, in 1575, to 1583, during which period he establishea the Santa Casa de Misericordia, the hospital of St. Raphael, and the leper-house (k St. Lazarus. Among his successors, Dom Jofto do Caaal (1690-1736), who lived ninety years and occupied the See of Macao for half his lifetime, assisted in the events which led up to the visit of Toumon, the papal legate, and his death at Macao (see Benedict XiV; China, The Question of Riiee; Riccr^ Matthew). Bishop Francisco Chacim (1805-28), a Franciscan, founded at Macao several important charitable institu- tions, reformed the capitular statutes of the see, and made a collection of its valuable dnfi^aBSd«^3^. ^^^