Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/258

Rh 236 V I N V I N dissertations on the various vices and virtues, the different arts and sciences, and carries down the history of the world to the sojourn in Egypt. The next eleven books (ii.-xii.) conduct us through sacred and secular history down to the triumph of Christianity under Constantine. The story of Barlaam and Josaphat occupies a great part of bk. xv. ; and bk. xvi. gives an account of Daniel s nine kingdoms, in which account Vincent differs from his professed authority, Sigebert of Gembloux, by reckoning England as the fourth instead of the fifth. In the chapters devoted to the origincs of Britain he relies on the Brutus legend, but cannot carry his cata logue of British or English kings further than 735, where he honestly confesses that his authorities fail him. Seven more books bring us to the rise of Mohammed (xxiii. ) and the days of Charle magne (xxiv.). Vincent s Charlemagne is a curious medley of the great emperor of history and the champion of romance. He is at once the gigantic eater of Turpin, the huge warrior eight feet high, who could lift the armed knight standing on his open hand to a level with his head, the crusading conqueror of Jerusalem in days before the crusades, and yet with all this the temperate drinker and admirer of St Augustine, as his character had filtered down through various channels from the historical pages of Eginhard. Bk. xxv. includes the first crusade, and in the course of bk. xxix., which contains an account of the Tartars, the author enters on what is almost contemporary history, winding up in bk. xxxi. with a short narrative of the crusade of St Louis in 1250. One remarkable feature of the Speculum Historiale is Vincent s constant habit of devoting several chapters to selections from the writings of each great author, whether secular or profane, as he mentions him in the course of his work. The extracts from Cicero and Ovid, Origen and St John, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Jerome, are but specimens of a useful custom which reaches its culminating point in bk. xxviii., which is devoted entirely to the writings of St Bernard. One main fault of the Speculum Historiale is the unduly large space devoted to miracles. Four of the mediaeval historians from whom he quotes most frequently are Sigebert of Gembloux, Hugh of Fleury, Helinand of Froidmont, and William of Malmesbury, whom he uses for Continental as well as for English history. Vincent has thus hardly any claim to be reckoned as an original writer. But it is difficult to speak too highly of his immense in dustry in collecting, classifying, and arranging these three huge volumes of 80 books and 9885 chapters. The undertaking to com bine all human knowledge into a single whole was in itself a colossal one and could only have been born in a mind of no mean order. Indeed more than six centuries passed before the idea was again resuscitated ; and even then it required a group of brilliant French men to do what the old Dominican had carried out unaided. The number of writers quoted by Vincent is almost incredible : in the Speculum Naturale alone no less than 350 distinct works are cited, and to these must be added at least 100 more for the other two Specula. His reading ranges from Arabian philosophers and natural ists to Aristotle, Eusebius, Cicero, Seneca, Julius Csesar (whom he calls Julius Celsus), and even the Jew Peter Alphonso. But Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek he seems to have known solely through one or other of the popular Latin versions. A list of Vincent s works, both MS. ,and printed, will be found in the Histoire Litieraire de France, vol. xviii., and in Ecliard. The Tmctatus Consolatorius pro Morte Amid and the Liber de Eruditions Filiontm JiegraKum (dedicated to Queen Margaret) were printed by Amerbach at Basel in December 1480. The Liber de Institutione Principum has never yet been printed, and the only MS. copy the writer of this article has been able to consult does not contain in its prologue all the information which Echard seems to imply is to be found there. The so-called first edition of the Speculum Mctjus, including the Speculum Morale, ascribed to Mentelin and long celebrated as the earliest work printed at Stras- burg, has lately been challenged as being oidy an earlier edition of Vincent s three genuine Specula (c. 1468-70), with which has been bound up the Speculum Monde first printed by Mentelin (c. 1473-76). (T. A. A.) VINCENT OF LERINR, ST, an ecclesiastical writer of the Western Church, of whose personal history hardly any thing is known, except that he was a native of Gaul, pos sibly brother of St Loup, bishop of Troyes, that he became a monk and priest in the monastery of Lerinum (island of St Honorat opposite Cannes), and that he died in or about 450. From himself we further learn that only after long and sad experience of worldly turmoil did he betake him self to the haven of a religious life. In 434, three years after the council of Ephesus, he wrote the Commonitorium (tdversus prof anas omnium hsereticorum novitates, in which the famous threefold test of orthodoxy is laid down and applied, &quot;quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.&quot; It is not altogether improbable that Vincent of Lerins was also the author of the Semipelagian treatise against Augustinianism which is dealt with by Prosper of Aquitania in his Pro Augmtini doctrina responsiones ad capitula objectionum Vincmtianarum. The Commonitorium has been edited by Baluze (Paris, 1663, 1669, and 1684), and by Kliipfel (Vienna, 1809). It also occurs in vol. 1. of Migue s Patrol, curs, compl. (1846). VINCENT DE PAUL, ST (1576-1660), founder of the &quot; Congregation of Priests of the Mission,&quot; usually known as LAZARITES (q.v.), was born on 24th April 1576 at Pouy near Dax (Landes), where his father owned a small farm. It was originally intended to train him for the ordinary pastoral life of the peasants of the Landes, but he soon showed other aptitudes, and after passing through the school at Dax he studied at Toulouse, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1600. Some time afterwards, while on board a felucca off Marseilles, he had the misfortune to be captured by Barbary pirates, who took him to Tunis and sold him as a slave. His third master, who happened to be a renegade Italian, he succeeded in converting, and both managed to make their escape, landing at Aigues-Mortea near Marseilles in June 1607. After short stays at Avignon and Rome, Vincent found his way to Paris, where he became favourably known to Monsieur (afterwards cardinal) de Berulle, who was then engaged in founding the con gregation of the French Oratory. At Berulle s instance he became curate of Clichy near Paris (1611); but this charge he soon exchanged for the post of tutor to the count of Joigny at Folleville, in the diocese of Amiens, where he first developed the idea of those &quot;missions &quot; with which his name is associated. In 1617 he accepted the curacy of Chatillon-les-Dombes (or sur-Chalaronne), and it was here that he received from the countess of Joigny the means by which he was enabled to found his first &quot;con- frerie.&quot; The subsequent history of the priests of the mis sion will be found in the article LAZARITES. Among the works of benevolence with which his name is more imme diately and personally associated are the establishment of a hospital for galley slaves at Marseilles, the institution of two establishments for foundlings at Paris, and the organization of the &quot; Filles de la Charite.&quot; He died at Paris on 27th September 1660, and was buried in the church of St Lazare. He was beatified by Benedict XITI. in 1729 and canonized by Clement XII. in 1737, his festival (duplex) being observed on 19th July. VINCENT FERRER, ST (1355-1419), a great Spanish Dominican preacher, was born of respectable parentage at Valencia on 23d January 1355. In February 1374 he took the Dominican habit, and after spending some years in teaching, and in completing his theological studies, he was licensed to preach. He graduated as doctor of theo logy at Lerida in 1374, and his sermons in the cathedral of Valencia from 1385 onwards soon became famous. Cardinal Peter de Luna took him with him to Paris in 1391 ; and on his own election to the pontificate as anti- pope Benedict XIII. made Ferrer his confessor and master of the sacred palace. Finding, however, the ecclesiastical atmosphere of Avignon an uncongenial one, he in 1397 resumed his work as a preacher, and Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and Great Britain and Ireland were successively visited by him ; and in every case numerous conversions were the result of his eloquence, which is described as having been singularly powerful and moving. In 1412 he was delegated by his native city to take part in the election of a successor to the vacant crown of Aragon ; and in 1416 he received a special invitation to attend the council of Constance, which, however, he does not appear to have accepted. He died at Vannes on 5th April 1419, and was canonized by Calixtus III. in 1455, his festival (duplex) being observed on 5th April. VINCI. See LEONARDO DA VINCI. VINDELICIA, or the country of the Vindelici, is a name of the Roman province which was also called Rhaetia Secunda. See RH^TIA.