ROTULI
•208
ROTTEN
oldest theological periodical in Germanj', is published
bv the professors of the theological facultj'. Priests
also act as instructors in the private boarding-
schools at Ehingen, EUwangen, and Rottweil, which
are under the patronage of the bishop, as well as in
the twenty-four State intermediate schools {Gym-
nasien, Rc'alschiden, Lateinschulen etc.)-
Despite every effort on the part of the Catholics, the male religious orders have not yet been read- mitted into the Kingdom of Wurtemberg. In 1910 the following orders and congregations of women had establishments in the diocese: the Congregation of the Third Order of St. Francis, who have a mother- house at Bonlanden, a boarding school, and two branches (116 sisters); the Sisters of St. Francis from Heiligenbronn, with a mother-house and two branches (ISS sisters), who conduct an institute for the rescue, education, and boarding of poor neglected girls, an institute for boys, and a children's home; the School Sisters of Our Blessed Lady, with a mother- house at Ravensburg and one branch (79 sisters); the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, from Rente, who have 103 nursing establishments, schools for manual work, and schools for children (783 sisters) ; the School Sisters of the Order of St. Francis, who have a mother-house at Siessen and 30 branches (373 sisters), and conduct several high schools for girls, and numerous public schools and schools for manual work; the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul, who have a mother-house at Untermarchtal and 127 branches (1245 sisters), and, besides nursing the sick, conduct schools for children, and schools for manual training, homes for working women, boarding schools, and rescue institutions; the Sisters of the Holy Cross, from Strasburg, Alsace, who have one establishment with 13 sisters. There are also in the diocese 11 ecclesiastical boarding schools for poor children and one royal orphanage under religious direction. Of the numerous Catholic churches notable from the artistic standpoint may be mentioned : the Cathedral of St. Martin at Rottenburg, a three-naved Gothic basilica, which was completely renovated after the fire of 1644 (a new cathedral is being planned by the present bishop); the late- Roman Church of St. John at Gmund (thirteenth century) ; the Gothic parish church of Gmiind (1351- 1410;; the church of the former Benedictine Monas- ter.' of EUwangen, the largest Romanesque church in the countr>' (1124); the parish church of Wein- garten; the "Sankt Petersdom Wiirttembergs", erected in the Baroque style by the Benedictines (1738-53); the Gothic Church of Our Lady, Stutt- gart (1879). Of the churches which were formerly Catholic, but which now are Protestant, the most important is the Gothic cathedral at Ulm (1377- 1494), which has the highest church tower in the world (over 528 feet). Much frequented places of pilgrimage are Weingarten, Weggental, near Rotten- burg; Reute, with the grave of Blessed Elizabeth Bona; the Schonberg, near EUwangen, the Drei- faltigkejtsberg, near Spaichingen. Concerning the erection and beginnings of the diocese, see Uppkr Rhine, Ecclesiastical Province of the; conrx'ming its further history and the relations be- tween the Catholic Church and the State, see WiJR- TEMBERG. It will be sufficient here to give a list of the bishops: Johann Baptist von Kellf-r 0828-45), the first bishop; Joseph von Lipp (1848-69); Karl Joseph von Hefele ri 869-93); \\ilhelm von Reiser (1893-98); Franz Xaver von Linsenmann, d. 21 Sept., 1898, before his consecration; Paul Wilhelm von Keppler (elected 11 Nov., 1898; consecrated 18 Jan., 1899).
Die kalhol. Kirchengetetze fUr da» Bittum RoUenburg, ed. Lano (RoU<;nburK, 18.36); Goltheh, Der Slant u. die. kathol. Kirche im KOni^/reirh WUrUemf/fn-a (Stuttgart, 1874); cf. there- with RCmeun, Rrjli-n und AufnOlze, new series (FreiburK, 1881), 205-77; Kvct.aKBie.VL, Die Didzete RoUentmrg u. Hire AnklOger
(Tabingen, 1869); Die kathol. Kirche unserer Zeit, II (Munich,
1900). 97-102; Nehek, Die kathol. u. evangel. Geistlichen Wiirt-
tembergs, 1813-1901 (Ravensburg, 1904); Personalkatalog des
Bistums Rottenb. (Rottenburg, 1910); Didzesanarchiv von
Schwaben (Stuttgart, 1882 — ); concerning the churches see Kep-
pler, WUrttembergs kirchl. KunstaUerlumer (Rottenburg, 1888);
Das Kdnigreich WUrltemberg, ed. by the National Office of
Statistics, 4 vols., 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1904-07); Kunst und
Altertumsdenkmale im Kdnigreich Wurttemberg (Esslingen, up to
1909), 60 parts.
Joseph Lins.
Rotuli, i. e. rolls, in which a long narrow strip of papjTUs or parchment, WTitten on one side, was wound like a blind about its staff, formed the earliest kind of "volume" {volumen from volvere, to roll up) of which we have knowledge. Many such rolls have been re- covered in their primitive form from the excavations at Herculaneum and elsewhere. In the fourth and fifth centuries, however, these rolls began to give place to books bound as we know them now, i. e. a num- ber of written leaves were laid flat one on top of the other and attached together by their corresponding edges. This was a gain in convenience, but for certain purposes rolls were still retained. To this latter class belonged certain legal records (from which is still de- rived the title of the judicial functionary known as the "Master of the Rolls"), also the manuscripts used for the chanting of the Exsultet (q. v.), and especially the documents employed in sending round the names of the deceased belonging to monasteries and other associations which were banded together to pray mutually for each other's dead. These "mortuary rolls" (in French "rouleaux des morts") were called in Latin "rotuli". They consisted of strips of parch- ment, sometimes of i)rodigious length, at the head of which was entered the notification of the death of a particular person deceased or sometimes of a group of such persons. The roll was then carried by a special messenger ("gerulus", "rotularius", "rollifer", "to- miger", "breviator", were some of the various titles given him) from monastery to monastery, and at each an entry was made upon the roll attesting the fact that the notice had been received and that the req- uisite suffrages would be said.
By degrees a custom grew up in many places of making these entries in verse with complimentary amplifications often occupying many lines. It will be readily understood that these records, some of which are still in existence, preserving as they do specimens of ornate verse composition by a repre- sentative scholar of each monastery or institution, and engrossed on the roll by some skilful penman in each community, afford valuable materials both for the study of palaeography and also for a comparative judgment of the standard of scholarship prevalent in these different centres of learning. The use of these mortuaiy rolls flourished most in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Some are of pro- digious size. That of the Abbess Matilda of Caen, the daughter of William the Conqueror, was seventy- two feet long and eight or ten inches wide, but this no doubt was altogether exceptional.
Delisle, Rouleaux des morts du IX*^ au X V»»w siMe (Paris, 1866); Idem in Bihl. de I'icole des Charles, series II, vol. Ill: Sur I'usage de prier pour les morts; Thurston, A Mediaeval Mortuary-card in The Month (London, Dec, 1896); Nichols in Mem. Archaolog. Institute (Norwich, 1847); Molinier, Obiluaires frantais au moyen-Age (Paris, 1886); Ebner, Gebetsverbriider- ungen (Freiburg, 1891); Wattendach, Schriflwesen im Mittelaller (3rd ed., Leipzig), 150-74.
Herbert Thurston.
Rouen, Archdiocese of (Rothomagensis), re- vived by the Concordat of 1802 with the Sees of Bayeux, Evreux, and S6ez as suffragans: it also in- cludes the Department of the Seine Inferieure. The Archdiocese of Rouen was curtailed in 1802 by giving the Archdeanery of Pontoise to the Diocese of Ver- sailles; the Deaneries of Pont Audemer and Bourg- thcroulde, and a part of the Deanery of P<^ner. to the Diocese of Evreux; several parishes of the Deanery
