Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/418

  name does not appear in contemporary lists of persons present at the council. Bromyarde is the author of a work entitled 'Summa Prædicantium,' printed at Nuremberg by A. Koberger in 1485, and reprinted several times, the last edition having appeared at Venice in 1586. It is also probable that he was the author of 'Opus trivium perutilium materiarum prædicabilium ordine alphabetico e divina canonica civilique legibus eleganter contextum per ven. F. Philippum de Bronnerde, ord. præd.,' printed without date or place, but probably from the press of Fust and Schœffer at Mayence, about 1475. This book was reprinted at Paris in 1500, with the author's name given as Joannes Bromyard.

 BRONTË, CHARLOTTE (1816–1855), afterwards, novelist, was the daughter of Patrick Brontë (1777-1861), and sister of (1817-1848), author:Emily Brontë (1818-1848), and author:Anne Brontë (1820-1849). Patrick Brontë, born on 17 March 1777 at Ahaderg, co. Down, was one of the ten children of Hugh Prunty or Brontë. He changed his paternal name to Brontë shortly before leaving Ireland. At the age of 16 he had tried to make his own living by opening a school at Drumgooland in the same county. The liberality of Mr. Tighe, vicar of Drumgooland, enabled him to go to Cambridge, with a view to taking orders. He entered St. John's College in October 1802, and graduated as B.A. in 1806. He was ordained to a curacy in Essex, and in 1811 to the curacy of Hartshead in Yorkshire. His improved means enabled him to allow 20l. a year to his mother during her life (, Brontë Family, 9). At Hartshead he met Maria, third daughter of Thomas Branwell of Penzance, then on a visit to her uncle, the Rev. J. Fennel, head-master of a Wesleyan academy near Bradford, and afterwards a clergyman of the church of England. They were married on 29 Dec. 1812 by the Rev. W. Morgan, who was at the same time married by Brontë to Fennel's daughter (Gent. Mag. 1813, p. 179). Brontë published two simple-minded volumes of verse, 'Cottage Poems' (Halifax, 1811) and the 'Rural Minstrel' (Halifax, 1813), and a tract called 'The Cottage in a Wood, or the Art of becoming Rich and Happy' a new version of the Pamela Story (reprinted in 1859 from the 2nd edition of 1818). In 1818 he also published the 'Maid of Killarney.' These, and some letters upon catholic emancipation, which appeared in the 'Leeds Intelligencer' for January 1829, were his only publications. After five years at Hartshead, Brontë became perpetual curate of Thornton. His eldest child, Maria, was born at Hartshead. The parish register of Thornton shows that his second daughter, Elizabeth, was baptised there on 26 Aug. 1815; Charlotte (born 21 April) on 29 June 1816; Patrick Branwell on 23 July 1817; Emily Jane on 20 Aug. 1818; and Anne on 25 March 1820. On 25 Feb. 1820 the Brontës had moved to Haworth, nine miles from Bradford, of which Brontë had accepted the perpetual curacy), worth about 200l. a year and a house. Mrs Brontë had an annuity of 50l. a year. A previous incumbent of Haworth had been the famous William Grimshaw, one of Wesley's first followers. Haworth was a country village, but great part of the population was employed in the woollen manufacture, then rapidly extending in the rural districts of Yorkshire. Dissent was strong in Haworth, and methodism had flourished there since the time of Grimshaw. Bronte, a strong churchman and a man of imperious and passionate character, extorted the respect of a sturdy and independent population. He is partly represented by Mr. Helston in 'Shirley,' though a Mr. Roberson, vicar of Heckmondwike, and a personal friend of Brontë's, supplied some characteristic traits (, Life of Charlotte Brontë (2nd edition), i. 120, ii. 121;, p. 21). His behaviour is described by his daughter's biographer as marked by strange eccentricity. He enforced strict discipline; the children were fed on potatoes without meat to make them hardy. He burnt their boots when he thought them too smart, and for the same reason destroyed a silk gown of his wife's. He generally restrained open expression of his anger, but would relieve his feelings by firing pistols out of his back-door or destroying articles of furniture. He became unpopular by supporting the authorities against the Luddites, but afterwards showed equal vigour in supporting men on strike against the injustice of the millowners. He was unsocial in his habits, loved solitary rambles over the moors, and, in consequence of some weakness of digestion, dined alone even before his wife's death and to the end of his own life (, i. 49-53; , pp. 20-23, 195, 198). Brontë himself complained of some of these statements as false, and Mr. Leyland (i. 41-56) accounts for the shooting and the silk-gown stories by misunderstandings and village gossip. Mrs. Brontë died of cancer on 15 Sept. 1821, and a year later