Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/605

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WALSINGHAM


543


WALTER


tended to provide Henry V with a summary of the ?tory of his predecessors, the dukes of Normandy, d partly borrowed from the "Historia Norman- rum" of William of Jumieges. Published in the )lls Series in 1S70, ed. Riley.

As to the quaUty of VV'alsingham's work, he was a Hector of facts rather than an historian in the jdern sense, painstaking and trustworthy, and to B we are indebted for the knowledge of many his- rical incidents not mentioned by other writers. He for instance, our chief authority for the reigns of chard II, Henry IV, and Henry V, for the particu- ■s of Wat Tyler's insurrection of 1381, and for much at is known about Wyclif and the Lollards.

Pits, De Rebus Angticis (Paris, 1619); Hardy. Monumenta slorica Britannica; Gairdner, Early Chronicles of England )ndon, s. d.); Leadam in Diet. Nat. Biog., s. v.

G. Cyprian Alston. Walsingham Priory stood a few miles from the sea the northern part of Norfolk, England. Founded the time of Edward the Confessor, the chapel of ir Lad}- of Walsingham was confirmed to the .4ugus- lian Canons a century later and enclosed within p priory. From the first this shrine of Our Lady IS a famous place of pilgrimage. Hither came the thful from all parts of England and from the Con- lent until the destruction of the priory by Henry II in 1,")3S. To this day the main road of the pil- ms through Newmarket, Br.andon, and Fakenham still called the Palmers' Way. Many were the ts of lands, rents, and churches to the canons of alsingham, and many the miracles WTought at [r Lady's shrine. Henry III came on a pilgrimage Walsikgham in 1241, Edward I in 1280 and 1296, Iward II in 131.5, Henry VI in 14.5.5, Henry VII in ^7, and Henry VIII in 1513. Erasmus in fulfilment a vow made a pilgrimage from Cambridge in 1511, d left as his offering a set of Greek verses expressive his piety. Thirteen years later he wrote his coUo- y on pilgrimages, wherein the wealth and magnifi- ice of Walsingham are set forth, and some of the )uted miracles rationalized. In 1.537 while the last or, Richard Vowell, was paying obseciuious respect Cromwell, the sub-prior Nicholas Alilcham was arged with conspiring to rebel against the suppres- n of the lesser monasteries, and on flimsy evidence s convicted of high treason and hanged outside i priory walls. In July, 1538, Prior Vowell .assented the destruction of Walsingham Priory and assisted

king's commissioners in the removal of the figure

Our Lady, of many of the gold and silver ornaments d in the general spoliation of the shrine. For his idy compliance the prior received a pension of £100 •ear, a large sum in those days, while fifteen of the aons received pensions varying from £4 to £6. le shrine dismantled, and the priory destroyed, its e was sold by order of Henry VIII to one Thomas Iney for £90, and a private mansion was subse- ently erected on the spot. The Elizabethan ballad, .L.ament for Walsingham," expresses something of lat the Norfolk people felt at the loss of their )rious shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

'Miers and -papers nf Henry VIII in Rolls Series; Erasmus, grimages; Calendars of Patent Roll and Papal Letters; Rymer, dera; Cox, Victoria County History: Norfolk,

Joseph Clayton. Walter, Ferdinand, jurist, b. at 'Wetzlar, .30 )v., 1794; d. at Bonn, 13 Dec, 1879. After study-

at the Latin school of Miihlheim on the Rhine

50.5-9), and later at Cologne (1809-13), he fought ainst Napoleon in 1814, .as a vohmteer in a Russian timent. In autumn, 1814, he began to study juris- iidence at Heidelberg, where he gr.aduated. 22 Nov., 17. He remained at Heidelberg as privatdozml til Easter, 1819, when he wa-s called to the newly- inded University of Bonn. He taught various ristic branches there till 1875, when he resigned on count of blindness. Though a layman, Walter was


a strenuous champion of the rights of the Church against civil encroachment. He was a member of the Prussian National Assembly in 1848 and of the First Chamber of Deputies in 1849. In a special pamphlet (1848) he opposed the incorporation into the criminal code of an article aUowing the State to deprive the clergy of ecclesiastical rights, and on 4 Oct., 1849, he dehvered a famous oration in defence of ecclesias- tical independence in the management of church affairs. But Walter's greatest achievements are in the field of juristic Uterature. All his Uterary pro- ductions are remarkable for thoroughness as well as literary finish and some of them have become cla.ssics in their sphere. His most famous work is his "Lehr- buch des Kirchemechts" (Bonn, 1822). The eighth edition was translated into French and .Spanish, the ninth into Italian. A fourteenth edition was pre- pared by Canon Gerlach, one of \\'alter's disciples (Bonn, 1871). The sources of canon law, which were added as an appendix to the sixth edition of the "Kirchenrecht", he materially enlarged and pub- lished separately as "Pontes juris ecclesiastici antiqui et hodierni" (Bonn, 1862). His other important works are: "Corpus juris Germanici antiqui" (3 vols., Bonn, 1824); "Romische Rechtsgeschichte" (Bonn, 1836); "Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte" (Bonn, 1853); "System des deutschen Privatrechts" (Bonn, 1855); "Das alte Wales", (Bonn, 1859), on the history, laws, and rehgion of ancient Wales; "Juristische Encyclo- piidie" (Bonn, 1856); "Naturrecht und Pohtik (Bonn, 1863); "Aus meinem Lebcn" (Bonn, 1865), an autobiography; "Das alte Erz stift und die Reichs- Btadt Koln" (Bonn, 1866), a civil history of the former electorate of Cologne, left unfinished.

Walter, Aus meinem Lehen (Bonn, 1865); Gerlach, in Der KathoUk, LX (Mainz, 1S80), II, 511-15.

Michael Ott. Walter of Chatillon (Gautier de Lille, Gualterus de Insulis; also Gadtier de Ch.\tillon, GuALTERus de Castillione), poet in the second half of the twelfth century, b. at LiUe; d. of the plague, probably at the city of Amiens, in the be- ginning of the thirteenth century. He studied at Paris, where his master was Etienne of Beauvais. Having afterwards .settled at Chatillon, he changed his name, de Insulis, into that of de Castillione. From Ch&tiUon, where he had charge of the schools, he went to Bologna to study law, and on his return to France was appointed secretary to Henry, Archbishop of Reims. He kept this office under Henry's successor, Wilham, who was Archbishop of Reims from 1176 to 1201. It was at that time that Walter wrote his "Alexandreid", at the request of Archbishop Wilham, to whom it is dedicated. His "Alexandreis, give Gesta Alexandri Magni" is a Latin poem of 5464 hexameters in ten books, based on Curtius's account of Alexander's expeditions. It shows a great familiarity with Virgil and the later Latin poets, but it is full of anaehronia, one of the most starthng being the Passion of Christ mentioned as something that had already taken place in the time of .\lexandcr. In spite of its defects, however, this poem is considered superior to those composed at that time and at the end of the thirteenth century; it was even preferred to the "/Fneid" for school work. The well-knowm hexameter, "Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charj'bdim" (He falls into Scylla's jaws who would escape Charj-bdis), is taken from the "Alexan- dreid". Other works of his are: "Libelli tres contra Judaeos in dialogi formam conscripti", published by Casimir Oudin in his collection, "Veterum aliquot Gallia" et Belgii scriptorum opuscula" (Leyden, 1692), and "De SS. Trinitate tractatus", published by Bernard Pez in his "Anecdota".

Oudin. Commentnrii de sfriptorihus et scriptis ecclesiasticis, 11; Histoire litteraire de la France, XV; Baumoartner, Die lateinische und griechiache Literatur der chrisUichen Volker, I.

P. J. Mahique.