Dillingen

Taxonomy

Code

Scope note(s)

Source note(s)

Display note(s)

Hierarchical terms

Dillingen

BT Bavaria

Dillingen

Equivalent terms

Dillingen

Associated terms

Dillingen

6 Name results for Dillingen

6 results directly related Exclude narrower terms

Eustace, Richard, 1562-1597, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1260
  • Person
  • 1562-25 February 1597

Born: 1562, Harristown, County Kildare
Entered: 02 February 1585, San Andrea, Rome, Italy (Romanae Province)
Ordained: 1590, Dillingen, Germany
Died: 25 February 1597, Fribourg, Switzerland - Upper Rhenish Province (RH INF)

Studied Philosophy before entry, then at Rome.
1587: In Augsburg College Germany.
1589: Studying Theology at Ingolstadt.
1590: At Dilingen Prefect of Boarding School and studying Theology.
1592: Teaching at Rudiments Brunthurst College.
1593: In Augsburg College and Brunthurst College.
1594-1597: At Fribourg College - Minister, Consultor of Rector, Confessor.

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica”:
Probably the same who was in Augsburg in 1593 and appears in the HIB CAT of that year.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ:
He was the younger brother of James, Viscount Baltinglass who died in Spain some months after Richard was received into the Society.
Had studied at Rome before Ent there 02 February 1585. After First Vows he was transcribed to the Upper Rhenish Province and completed his studies at Ingolstadt and Dillingen where he was ordained 1590. 1590-1597 After Ordination he taught Humanities for a brief period before being sent as an Operarius at Freiburg until his death there 25 February 1597.
Robert Rochford, then in Lisbon, wrote to the General on the occasion of the death of James, Viscount Baltinglass, brother of Richard. He indicated the precarious health of the heir to the title, their brother Edmund, who was also unmarried and childless. Fr Rochford was inquiring about the wisdom of keeping the heir apparent in the Society. The General’s response is not on record, but Richard stayed in the Noviceship.

Fleming, Richard, 1542-1590, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1314
  • Person
  • 1542-26 August 1590

Born: 1542, County Westmeath
Entered: 1561, Louvain, Belgium - Franciae Province (FRA)
First Vows: 24 June 1563, Louvain, Belgium
Ordained: 16 December 1569
Final Vows: 4 June 1576, received by Peter Canisius
Died: 26 August 1590, Pont-à-Mousson, France - Franciae Province (FRA)

1565-1566 Theology in Roman College and German College. Master of Arts
1567 CAT Teaching Logic at Dillingen - sent from Rome by Fr de Borgia. Peter Canisius at Dillingen then - Fleming brought a letter to him from Borgia in Rome
1570 Licenced, Teaching Theology at school. Confessor
1572 At Ingolstadt
1576 Was Professor in France (Vatical Arch Inghilterra). Rector of Bordeaux College
1577 Sought by Fr Genat from Fr General for Pont-à-Mousson
1583 In Pont-à-Mousson teaching Theology Doctor of Philosophy and Theology. Chancellor 1584-1585
Wrote first Catalogue of Irish Saints - published by Fitzsimon
Fr General wrote to him at Bordeaux referring to him as Socius to Maldonatus

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica”
He was a man of great virtue; A Writer; First Chancellor and Professor of Theology at Pont à Mousson, also Professor at Clermont and Paris (succeeding the celebrated Maldonatus)
The Blessed Virgin revealed to him in Paris that Fr Aquaviva would be elected General of the Society (cf Fr Hogan’s Irish list). Sacchini Part V Hist. Soc. mentions this prediction at Paris in 1581, of the election of Fr Claudius Aquaviva as general of the Society. He is mentioned in the “L’Université de Pont-à-Mousson” by Fr Nicolas Abram SJ (publised by Fr Carayon SJ, Paris 1870) - “He was of a noble Irish family and of noble and religious bearing”; Probably the “Richard” mentioned in Shirley’s letters; Stanihurst in “Description of Ireland” 1586 says “..of him I hear a great report, to be an absolute Divine and Professor thereof”. His name stands first in the list taken from the original in Vol II Anglia Hist. in ARSI. He appeared to Fr Derbyshire after his death.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Richard Fleming 1540-1592
Our most eminent and honoured Theologian of the early years of the Penal times was Fr Richard Fleming. Born in 1540, in what was afterwards known as Westmeath, he came from the family of the Lords of Slane, a family which later have an Archbishop to the See of Dublin. Richard entered the Society in 1561, the year the first Irish Jesuit, Fr David Wolfe, landed at Cork.

He became the first Chancellor of the University founded at Pont-à-Mousson by the Cardinal of Lorraine in 1573. Two years later he was called upon to fill the chair of Theology at the College of Clermont, Paris, vacated by the celebrated Maldonatus. This eminent post he held for nine or ten years, professing with ever increasing success amid the full blaze of Parisian party spirit.

He retired to Pont-à-Mousson where he died on August 25th 1590. Before his death he had a vision of Our Lady, in which he was left into the General Congregation then in session in Rome, and heard Our Lady say to the Electors “Choose Claudio Acquaviva as General”.

Rochfort, Robert, 1530-1588, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/2064
  • Person
  • 1530-19 June 1588

Born: 1530, County Wexford
Entered: the Society 05 December 1564, Professed House, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Final Vows: 1575
Died: 19 June 1588, at Sea in The Armada - “in classe quel ibat in Angliam” - Lusitaniae Province (LUS)

1567: He is being sent by Fr Borgia to Canisius “as he is one of the most talented of the pupils of Fr Pereira, Prof Philosophy at the Roman College, and advanced in virtue” (Letters of Borgia Vol III p510).
1567: “Robertus or Rochford Hibernus” at Dillingen in November (Richard Fleming there at the same time) - his talent at Rome having been noteworthy
1576: At Paris College Age 30.
1587: At St Anthony’s College Lisbon, Age 44, Soc 22, teaching Latin and Catechism. Said to be teaching Ireland under the Bishop of Cork -Tanner, an ex Jesuit) VAT Arch Inghilterra 1.308)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica”
Probably a brother of Charles - who only gets mentioned as being in Youghal 1588.
He was a great linguist; Prisoner; Missioner.
His name often appears in the Anglo-Irish State Papers.
He died on board a Spanish man-of-war; “a Martyr of Charity”; Had taught school in Youghal in 1575.
It is probably he of whom Stanihurst describes “born in the county of Wexford, is a proper divine, an exact philosopher and very good antiquary”.
In 1581 Matthew Lamport of Waterford and Matthias Lamport a Dublin PP were hanged for harbouring Fr Rochford; Robert Meiler, Edeard Cheevers, John O’Lahy and two sailors were hanged, drawn and quartered for bringing him from Belgium to Ireland; Richard French, A Wexford Priest, for harbouring him, was imprisoned in Dublin and died of misery in prison (IbIg).
Mentioned in a letter of Edmund Tanner, Cork 11 October 1577, as keeping a school at Youghall with Charles, spreading on every side the good odour of the Society of Jesus (Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS).
Highly spoken of in a letter from Henry Fitzsimon in a letter in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, March 1873 p 262, and is frequently mentioned in "Hibernia Ignatiana".
We know of his death 19 June 1588 from an entry in “Bibl. de Bourg. MS n 6397, liber primus defunctorum SJ in variis provinciis, Brussels” : “Balthazar de Almeida (died) in a ship which was proceeding to England, 17 June 1588. P Robertus Rocheford (died) on the same ship, 19/06/1588”. They were probably Chaplains in the Spanish Armada.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Robert Rochfort 1530-1588
After the departure of Fr David Wolfe from Ireland, there were two Jesuits left there, Frs Charles Leae and Robert Rochfort. The latter was born in Wexford in 1530 and entered the Society at Rome in 1564. St Peter Canisius was his Professor at Dilingen in 1567.

Having come to the Irish Mission, he succeeded in maintaining a school in Youghal, in spite of continual persecution until 1575, with the aid of Fr Leae. This school was highly praised by Edmund Tanner, Bishop of Cork and former Jesuit.

Fr Rochfort was closely associated with Viscount Baltinglass in the rebellion of 1581. On his account many people suffered imprisonment and death for harbouring him. The English seem to have had a great dread of him and his name is constantly mentioned in State Papers of the time. Finally, seeing how dangerous it was for people to harbour him, he withdrew to Lisbon in 1532.

In Lisbon he laboured for some years to the great spiritual advantage of Catholics from Ireland and England and other nations, and whom his skill in many languages enabled him to instruct and assist. According to common report, he died in Lisbon in 1588. However, in a list of Defuncti of the Society we find the following “Balthazar Almeida died in a ship which was proceeding to England June 17th 1588. P Robert Rochford died in the same ship, June 19th 1588. He had been a prisoner for the faith and died a victim of charity”. It would seem that he had been a chaplain to one of the ships of the Spanish Armada

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
ROCHFORD, ROBERT, is mentioned with honour in the Epistle Dedicatory of Father Fitzsimon’s Treatise on the mass, printed in 1611. In a letter of Father Edmund Tanner, dated Cork, the 11th of October, 1577, I read, “Rev. Father Charles and Master Robert Rochford spread on every side the sweetest odour of the Institute of the Society of Jesus. They keep a school in the town of Youghall, in the Dioceses of Cork, Munster : their auditors and the townspeople are daily trained in the Christian doctrine, and the frequentation of the Sacraments and good Morals, as well as the miserable circumstances of the times will permit, but not without molestation; yet God gives them perseverance and great benefit to their Hearers”.

Tanner, Edmund, 1526-1579, Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork and former Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/1615
  • Person
  • 1526-04 June 1579

Born: 1526 Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 09 June 1565, Professed House Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Left: 13 November 1571, Milan, Italy
Died: 04 June 1579, Munster

On 28 June 1567 Fr Borgia writes to Fr P Canisius that he was thinking of sending him to help at the University at Dillingen. Fr Womanstadt especially thought of sending a Theologian to Ireland - a priest would be a very good thing. see many things about Tanner in Vol VI of Canisius. (Spic oss III 35)
12 August 1567 Borgia to Germany : “Edmund an Irishman, a man of mature age and good parts will be sent to Würzburg. We have sent him to Würzburg or Dillingen where he will be useful. He is a Theologian” (Fr Nadal’s Epistolae Vol iii 509, 526)
On 20 August 1565 Fr Polanco writes to Primate Creagh : “We have elected Fr Borgia as General at our General Congregation. Among the Fathers who have come to Rome is Edmund the Irishman (Tanner), vir probitatis et doctinae non vulgaris qui nunc in probabtionibus nostrae Societatis exercetur” (Borgia Vol IV 68).

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
A Writer; A profound divine (Stanihurst); A Prisonere; A Bishop of Cork (cf "Hibernia Ignatiana").
He was once arrested but had escaped by the aid of friends. The heretics were bent on his destruction. God had blessed his labours, and many would be reconciled, to the Church, should the violence of the persecution subside. (cf Oliver, Stonyhurst MSS).

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Edmund Tanner, Bishop of Cork 1530-1579
Edmund Tanner was born in Dublin in 1530 and entered the Society at Rome in 1566. With Fr Rochford, he went to Dilingen for his studies. Owing to ill-health and with the blessing iof his Superiors, he left the Society. On Fr David Wolfe’s recommendation, he was appointed Bishop of Cork in 1574.In 1576 he received special faculties for Cork, Dublin and Cashel, and for this reason he is referred to in contemporary documents as Commissionary Apostolic.

Fr Houling SJ records that Bishop Tanner was arrested at Clonmel and thrown into prison. There he was visited by a Protestant prelate whom he finally converted. He then escaped and continued his labours for four years. Worn out by prison and toil, he died a veritable martyr in January 1579.

There is extant a famous letter of his to Rome in which he praised very highly the work of Frs Rochford and Lee in our school at Youghal.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
TANNER, EDMUND. A brief letter of this Father, addressed from Cork, the 11th of October, 1577, is extant. He states that he had once been arrested; but by the industry of his friends, had effected his escape, and that the enemies of Catholic Faith were constantly intent on his destruction; that God blessed his labours in the vineyard, and that many would be reconciled to the Church, if the violence of Persecution should subside. I suspect this Father is the person mentioned by Harris, p.97, Book, I. Writers of Ireland, who wrote “Lectiones in Summam D. Thomae”.

Wadding, Ambrose, 1583-1619, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/2207
  • Person
  • 24 February 1583-22 January 1619

Born: 24 February 1583, Waterford City, County Waterford
Entered: 11 January 1605, St Andrea, Rome, Italy - Romanae Province (ROM)
Ordained: c 1611, Ingolstadt, Germany
Died: 22 January 1619, Dilingen, Bavaria, Germany - Germanicae Superiors Province (GER SUP)

Brother of Luke OFM; 1st Cousin of Walter, Michael, Peter, Luke and Thomas

Alias Gaudinus

Had studied 2 years Philosophy before Entry
1607-1611 At Ingolstadt studying Theology. Repetitor Metaphysicorum in Boarding School. Socius to Fr Hoiss. President of the Major Congregation of BVM
1611 Age 28 Soc 6
1612-1619 At Dilingen teaching Physics, Logic, Ethics, Metaphysics and Hebrew. Confessor inchoarum. “Hypocauste” BV at Boarding School. Catechist of the Philosophers and Rhetoricians. Finished studies in 1612 but did not go to Tertianship because he could not be spared

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
Elder brother of Luke OSF
An officer in early life.
1617 in Bavaria (Irish Ecclesiastical Record, August 1874)
A man of great talents and virtue; Writer; A perfect religious; Very devout to the Blessed Sacrament; Knew “Imitation” by heart;
Professor of Philosoophy; Director and Professor of Moral Theology to 150 religious of various Orders at Dilingen (1611-1619); Superior of the Convictus of St Jerome.
About ten writings of his were published at Dilingen in 1312 and 1613.
Named in a letter of Christopher Holiwood alias Thomas Lawndry, Irish Mission Superior of 04/11/1611
(Cf Sketch of this most distinguished man in “Hist. Prov. Super. Germaniae SJ” and in de Backer’s “Biblioth des Écrivains SJ”)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Son of Walter and Anastatia née Lombard. Brother of Luke OFM. 1st Cousin of Walter, Michael, Peter, Luke and Thomas
Had already studied two years Philosophy at Salamanca before Ent 11 January 1605 Rome
1607-1611 After First Vows he was sent to Ingolstadt for studies and was Ordained there by 1611.
1611 From the end of his formation he held a Chair of Philosophy at Dilingen until his death there 22 January 1619
Father Holywood tried to get the General to have him sent to Ireland in 1616, but Wadding's services were deemed urgently required at Dilingen.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Wadding, Ambrose
by Terry Clavin

Wadding, Ambrose (1583–1619), Jesuit and university teacher, was born 24 February 1583, the son of Walter Wadding and his wife, Anastatia Lombard, both of Waterford. He was an older brother of the famous Franciscan Luke Wadding (qv). Following the deaths of both his parents in 1602, Ambrose left Waterford to study philosophy in the Irish college at Salamanca for a year or two, before joining the Spanish military. However, after narrowly escaping death during a naval battle, he decided to become a priest and eventually joined the Jesuits, entering the novitiate of San Andrea in Rome on 11 January 1605. He studied philosophy there for a year and in 1606–7 travelled to the University of Ingolstadt in Germany to study theology for four years. He demonstrated great piety and showed an aptitude for mathematics and other related subjects.

In 1610 he was repetitor of metaphysics in Ingolstadt and vice-president of the major congregation of the Blessed Virgin, and a year later he was superior of the clerics in the college. Having completed his theology studies, he was appointed professor of physics in the University of Dilingen, Germany, in 1612. Over the next few years he held various professorships in the university, before settling as professor of ethics and Hebrew from 1615. At Dilingen he also administered a nearby hostel, St Jerome's, which housed students from religious orders. In October 1616 the Irish Jesuits requested his transfer to Ireland, but the Jesuits at Dilingen blocked this, saying that he was too important. Always in poor health, he died 22 January 1619 at Dilingen, leaving behind nine printed philosophical theses and a manuscript on moral theology. His early death was mourned by his academic colleagues, who greatly admired him for his learning.

Edmund Hogan, ‘Worthies of Waterford and Tipperary’, Waterford and South-East Ireland Archaeological Society Journal, iv (1898), 3–13; P. Power, Waterford saints and scholars (17th century) (1920), 64–6

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Ambrose Wadding SJ 1584-1619
Ambrose Wadding was the brother of the famous Franciscan Luke. His mother and father both died of the plague in 1602, and Ambrose was sent, by the direction of his dying father, to be admitted at the Irish College, Salamanca. He had some idea of entering the army or navy in Spain, but changed his mind and entered the Society at Rome in 1605, eight months before his brother Luke became a Franciscan.

He soon made his name for learning and holiness. All his life he spent as Professor, filling at various times the Chairs of Theology, Logic, Physics, Ethics and Hebrew at the University of Dilingen. He could not be spared for his tertianship.

In spite of valiant efforts on the part of Fr Holywood and his own ardent desires, he never returned to labour in Ireland..

He left behind his none philosophical treatises besides an MSS on Moral Theology, now in the Benecdictine Monastery of Engelberg,

He died on January 22nd 1619, at the early age of thirty-five.

White, Stephen, 1575-1647, Jesuit priest

  • IE IJA J/2255
  • Person
  • 1575-23 April 1647

Born: 1575, Clonmel, County Tipperary
Entered: 13 October 1596, Villagarcía, Galicia, Spain - Castellanae Province (CAST)
Ordained: c 1601, Salamanca, Spain
Final Vows: 06 January 1613, Dilingen, Germany
Died: 23 April 1647, Galway Residence, Galway City, County Galway

Younger Brother of Thomas - RIP 1622; Uncle of Peter White - RIP 1678; Thomas White - Ent 30/09/1612, LEFT 12/11/1618; Cousin of William White - RIP 1625

His name appears on a list of 8 who got a BA from Salamanca University in 1595 and then entered
1597 At Villagarcía College Age 22 Soc 6. Already a BA and studying Theology
1600 At Salamanca studying Theology Age 25 Soc 3
1603 Age 29 Soc 7. Professor of Arts at Salamanca University
1605 Came from CAST to GER SUP
1606-1609 At Ingolstadt lecturing in Theology. Age 32 Soc 10 and a Doctor of Divinity. Confessor and “Oreses Religiosorum in Convictu”
1610-1323 At Dilingen teaching Sacred Scripture “vires mediocres”
1612 Professor of Scholastic Theology at Dillingen and Pres of Casus. Confessor
1623-1627 Went to Pont-á-Mousson (CAMP) - Confessor and Spiritual Father to Germans
1628-1630 At Metz Confessor, Spiritual Father and Prefect of Cases
1630 Came to Irish Mission
Usher praised White in his Collectanea 1621 Tom V & VI)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronolgica”:
c1617 he was in Bavaria
1634 Distinguished Professor of Theology (IER)
The Protestant Archbishop Ussher in “Primordia” p 400 calls him a man of exquisite knowledge in the antiquities, not only of Ireland, but also of other nations.
Robert Nugent, Superior of Irish Mission in a letter from Kilkenny 10 January 1646 to Charles Sangri, speaks of his works which he had sent to censors for examination.
Professor of Theology at Dillingen, Ingolstadt and Pont-à-Mousson etc.; Writer; Antiquarian;
Called a “Polyhistor” by Raderus, Colgan and others on account of his extraordinary learning.
(cf Oliver Stonyhurts MSS; Dean Reeves “Memoir of Stephen White”; de Backer “Biblioth. des Écrivains SJ”; De Buck “Archéologie Irlandaise”)

◆ Fr Francis Finegan SJ :
Had already graduated with a BA in Arts and in Theology abroad before Ent 13 October 1596 Villagarcía
1598-1601 After First Vows he was sent to Royal College Salamanca for studies and was Ordained there c 1601
1601-1605 Taught Philosophy at Irish College Salamanca
1605-1609 To the disappointment of his Spanish Superiors he was withdrawn by the General from CAST and appointed to a Chair of Theology at the College of Ingolstadt in the Upper German Province (GER SUP). At the end of two years here he was reported to the General as having departed from the ratio studiorum in his teaching. His lectures were represented to the General as “partly temerarious, partly dangerous and in great part to be retracted”,
1609 In September 1609 General ordered that Stephen be dismissed from his post and sent back to Ireland. But his health was never robust and his physician decided against the return journey to the Irish Mission. Later the General was to learn that White had not been so unorthodox, he had merely been expounding the opinions of Vasquez and was not the only Jesuit who approved of that scholar's teaching.
1610-1622 He was sent to the College of Dilingen, and he was not reinstated as a professor of Theology for the next two years. But this temporary disgrace incurred at Ingolstadt proved to be providential. The two years of freedom from the lecture-hall were not spent idly by Stephen. From this time dates his interest in the rich manuscript materials for Irish history and hagiography buried away in German monastic libraries. By Autumn, 1612, he had composed a work on the lives of Irish Saints but the General ordered that the book be submitted to rigid censorship in case it might cause offence to people of other countries. That same Autumn, he resumed his theology lectures in Dilingen, and was congratulated by the General who warned him, however, not to deflect from the 'sententia ordinaria". During these years he was professor, for a time, of Sacred Scripture. He remained in Dilingen as professor of dogmatic theology until 1622
1622-1627 Ever since 1620 White was anxious to leave the Upper German province and in 1622 was allowed to pass to CAMP where he was assigned to the University of Pont-à-Mousson. Although he had been advised in advance that he could not expect a Chair in that University, he taught Theology in fact there over the next three years, although his status might be better described, perhaps, as coach and not professor. But the five years, 1622/27, spent by him at Pont-à-Mousson were mostly taken up with historical research. For within a year of his arrival, 1623, he had ready for the press his celebrated “Apologia pro Hibernia”. But the General stopped the printing of this work at Antwerp.
1627-1630 He was transferred to Metz but held no teaching post there.
1630-1644 The General in response to requests from the Irish Mission allowed White to return to Ireland. Very little is known with certainty about his career on the Irish Mission. There is no mention of his name again in the sources until 1637 when the CATS simply recapitulated his past career but gave no hint of his address or occupation that year. It also said that his was in poor health. That Winter he wrote to the General asking that the Will which he had made at Dilingen before his final profession should be implemented to the benefit of the Irish Mission. His well-known letter to John Colgan O.F.M., 31 January 1640, implies that he had been engaged in research work ever since his return to Ireland and that he had spent the previous decade for the most part at Dublin where he had access to the library or Archbishop James Ussher.
1640 His later years, after the Puritan occupation of Dublin were spent in Galway. Correspondence of 1644 and 1646 indicates that he had a work approved for publication. He died sometime in or after 1646. Stephen White was one of the most remarkable Irish scholars of his time. His ability as philosopher and theologian was widely acknowledged in Spain, Germany and France. But his enduring fame rests upon his pioneering work in unearthing the manuscript treasures that preserved so much of the story of Ireland's past. He transcribed manuscripts for the Bollandists, for John Colgan, for James Ussher. Both the latter acknowledged their indebtedness to him. His magnum opus, the “Apologia pro Hibernia”, did not see the light until two centuries after his death but Lynch had a precis of the work before him when he was writing his “Cambrensis Eversus”.
White was the first Irish writer to voice the national tradition which rejected as spurious the grant of Ireland by Pope Adrian IV to Henry II of England. Though his troubles at Ingolstadt gave him the heaven-sent opportunity of turning to historical research, it is to be noted that his contemporary Irish fellow- Jesuits seem to have had no appreciation whatever of his contributions to Irish historical scholarship. Indeed there is plenty of evidence to hand that he was plagued by members of the Irish Mission with invitations to return during his years at Ingolstadt, Dilingen and Pont-à-Mousson. When he returned to Ireland in 1630 he had very probably little facility in speaking either Irish or English after his forty years abroad. The mission itself was unable to furnish him with the library facilities needed for his research work. Yet taking into account all the successes, misunderstandings and disappointments that mark his career, he will always be regarded as the most eminent Irish Jesuit produced in the Old Society. He died at Galway 23 April 1647.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
White, Stephen
by Terry Clavin

White, Stephen (1574?–1646/7), Jesuit priest, academic, and antiquary, was born in Clonmel, the son of Pierce White. His was a remarkable family, two of his brothers also being priests: James was vicar apostolic of Waterford and Lismore and Thomas White (qv), a Jesuit, was the founder of the first Irish college on the continent. Another brother was deposed as mayor of Clonmel in 1606 for refusing to take the oath of supremacy. He was probably educated in the catholic school at Clonmel before travelling to study at the Irish college at Salamanca founded by his brother about 1590. After graduating BA, he entered the Society of Jesus on 13 October 1596 at Villagarcia. He remained at Salamanca, continuing his studies in theology, and obtained a doctorate of divinity about 1605.

In 1602 he taught a one-year course in humanities at Salamanca, marking the start of a distinguished academic career, and followed this up with a three-year course in mental philosophy. Such was his reputation that he was appointed to the chair of scholastic theology in the University of Ingoldstadt, one of the most distinguished universities in Germany, inaugurating his lectureship on 7 January 1606. In 1609 he went to lecture in the University of Dilingen on the Danube, being first professor of scholastic theology, and librarian of the university, and by 1612 confessor of the religious orders. He remained there for fourteen years, becoming one of the most accomplished theologians in Germany. After departing Dilingen he retired from academic life, being confessor to the Germans at Pont-à-Mousson, Champagne (1623–7), and spiritual father at the college of Metz (1627–9).

After 1611 two factors led him towards the study of Irish history. First, there had been little contact between Ireland and continental Europe since the early middle ages; the little that was known about Ireland tended to be from invariably hostile English sources. Second, Scottish antiquarians, capitalising on the fact that prior to the late middle ages the inhabitants of Ireland had been called Scots, claimed the Irish scholars and missionaries, who were a ubiquitous presence across the continent in the early medieval period, as their own. This opportunistic attempt to deprive Ireland of its saints and scholars, and of its best case for being a civilised Christian nation, did not go unchallenged, not least from White. He was aided in his scholarly labours by his academic contacts. Dilingen received students from abbeys and monasteries all over Germany and beyond, facilitating his access to vast reservoirs of ancient manuscripts relating to Ireland.

White wrote his Apologia pro Hibernia adversus Cambri calumnias between 1611 and 1613, declaring ‘The sole purpose of my writing is to defend the injured reputation of the old Irish whom I, and my fathers, for four hundred years have shared a common fatherland.’ He refuted the allegations of the twelfth-century Welsh author Gerald (qv) of Wales whose Expugnatio Hibernica justified the Norman conquest of Ireland through portraying the natives as barbaric and semi-pagan. The Apologia demolished such allegations but was marred slightly by his highly personalised attacks on Gerald. Although White was of Norman ancestry, he identified with the Gaelic Irish. During his career he wrote many works glorifying Ireland's past and refuting the Scots’ claims. He also transcribed a number of manuscripts on the lives of early Irish saints. However, none of his works was published during his lifetime, partly because of a lack of funds but also because of the politically sensitive nature of the material. A generous scholar, he freely shared his writings and discoveries with his contemporaries; others prospered from his unselfish spadework while he remained in comparative obscurity. His knowledge was such that he was accorded the title of ‘polyhistor’, or walking library.

The Irish Jesuits had frequently requested his transfer to Ireland, and in late 1628 he returned to his homeland, after an absence of thirty-eight years, to teach in a Jesuit college just established in Dublin. However, in January 1629 it was suppressed by the government. He returned to his native diocese of Waterford and Lismore, where the teacher who had lectured in some of Europe's most renowned academic institutions spent his autumn years teaching street children. During the late 1630s he was based in Dublin, and at this time embarked on his most celebrated and remarkable antiquarian collaboration. He several times met James Ussher (qv), Church of Ireland primate of Ireland and one of the most brilliant scholars of his age, who shared White's passion for Irish history. Ussher showed him his library and praised his learning. In return White gave Ussher his manuscripts on the lives of the early Irish saints.

After the start of the 1641 rebellion he fled Dublin to settle in Galway city. By then he was too infirm to carry out any more work or to become involved in the turbulent events of the 1640s. While in Galway he met John Lynch (qv), whose Cambrensis eversus was based on White's Apologia. His most likely date of death is shortly after January 1646 but some accounts have him alive in April 1647.

Burgundian Library, Brussels, xxi, nos. 7658–61; The whole works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland, ed. and trans. W. Harris (1745–6), ii, 103; John Lynch, Cambrensis eversus, ed. Matthew Kelly (Dublin Celtic Society, 1848–52), ii, 394; Stephen White, Apologia pro Hibernia adversus Cambri calumnias, ed. Matthew Kelly (1849); William Reeves, ‘Memoir of Stephen White’, RIA Proc., xiii (1861); DNB; Edmund Hogan, ‘Worthies of Waterford and Tipperary’, Waterford ASJ, iii (1897), 119–34; William Burke, History of Clonmel (1983), 457–64

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973
Father Stephen White 1576-1646
In the estimation of historians and antiquarians, both Catholic and Protestant, Irish and continental, Fr Stephen White was a scholar of the first order. He was a nan of encyclopaedic knowledge, with a bent for antiquities. His contribution to the Annals of the Four Masters and their invaluable help in their compilation is attested warmly and generously by Michael Colgan, the greatest of them.

Born in Clonmel of a family which gave many illustrious sons to the Jesuits, he joined the Society at Villagarcia in 1596, and having pursued a brilliant course in the various continental colleges, professed Philosophy and Theology for many years in Germany and France.

A long wished for project in education, an Irish University, was started in Back Lane Dublin in 1629. Fr Stephen was sent home to profess in it. Its life span was short. For the next ten years Fr White spent most of his time teaching young boys in Waterford.

On the outbreak of the Confederate War he went to Galway, where he died an old man of 72 in 1646.

His works include : “Apologia pro Hibernia’, “Geste Dei”, “De Sanctis et Antiquitate Hiberniae” together with numerous philosophical and theological tracts. A great deal of these works are lost, indeed were never published through fear of exacerbating the English authorities.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
WHITE, STEPHEN. This Irish Father deserves a fuller eulogium than I am able to supply. He was the author of some historical pieces relating to Ireland, in confutation of the assertions of Giraldus Cambrensis. The Rev. John Lynch, who had the custody of this valuable MS mentions it in Chapter I and XIV of his “Cambrensis Evcrsus”, printed in 1662, and expresses his deep regret that a considerable part of it was lost during the Civil Wars. Archbishop Usher, an excellent judge of these matters, in p. 400 of his Primordia, gives F. White the character of being “a man of exquisite knowledge in the Antiquities, not only of Ireland, but also of other nations”. In a letter of F. Robert Nugent, Superior of his brethren in Ireland, and addressed from Kilkenny, the 10th of January, 1646, to F. Charles Sangri, I read what follows.
“I have given the commission to four of our Fathers diligently to examine the works of F. Stephen White, and to forward their judgment to your paternity, conformably to the directions you have recently sent us. His works are various, and as our Fathers live in places very distant from each other, and notwithstanding the most Reverend Bishops, (who are ready to defray the expenses of the printing), as also the supreme Council very earnestly insist, that a certain work of his, “De sanctis et Antiqititate Ibcrniae” be instantly sent to the Press, I find it difficult and next to impossible to resist their reasonable demand, since the Manuscript itself has been perused by several them, and has been pronounced not only worthy of being printed, but highly necessary for the credit and advantage of this Kingdom. Therefore I have written again to the Examiners, that each would privately report their opinion on this work as soon as possible to your Paternity; though all in their letters to me greatly extol it, and declare it most worthy to issue from the Press. But 1 am unwilling to allow any work to be printed that can give just cause of offence to any person : and yet there is less cause of apprehension in this case, as this book merely treats on the Saints and Antiquity of the Kingdom of Ireland”.