Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/816

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EYRE


736


EYSTON


the support of Cardinal Legate Guido, Eymeric, in the interest of peace, was removed from office at the gen- eral chapter of the Dominican Order held at Perpignan in 1360. Two years later, at the general chapter lield at Ferrara, he was chosen vicar of the Dominican prov- ince of Aragon. Shortly afterwanls, when a provin- cial was to be elected for the same province, there was a hopeless division among the Dominicans, one party supporting Eymeric, the other Father Bernardo Er- mengaudi. Pope Urban V confirmed neither, but ap- pointed a third, Jacopo Dominici.

Meanwhile Eymeric showed great activity as a preacher, as wefl as a writer on theological subjects. Some years later he was again made inquisitor general of Aragon; we find him in this office in 1366, and several tractates on dogmatic subjects date from the years immediately following. He combated in par- ticular Raymond Lully, in whose writings he found numerous errors. He influenced Gregory XI to for- bid the faithful to read certain writings of Lully's and to condemn by a special decree (26 Jan., 1376) several theses extracted from his works. Eymeric was in high esteem with Iving Pedro IV of Aragon, as well as with Gregory XI. In 1376 he visited the papal court at Avignon, and accompanied the pope on his return to Roine. He was still there at the election of Urban

VI and the nomination of the antipope Clement VII, whose claims he vigorously championed against those of the Roman pope. Towards the end of 1378 he re- turned to .'\j-agon, but in the interests of his office as grand inquisitor often went to the court of Clement

VII at Avignon. Eymeric continued his campaign against the LuUists by word as well as by pen. In his "Tractatus contra doctrinam Raymundi LuUi", dedicated to Clement VII, he indicates 135 heresies, 38 errors, and many misleading statements of Lully. He also composed a " Dialogus contra LuUistas" and other treati.ses. Lully's partisans, however, won over to their side, soon after his accession, King John I of Aragon. Eymeric was banished and went to the papal court of Avignon, where he was welcomed both by Clement VII and later by Benedict XIII. He wrote numerous theological works and also special tractates defending the legitimacy of the Avignon popes, e.g. his "Tractatus de potestate papali" (1383), which he composed for Clement VII, and two tractates for Benedict XIII. Notwithstanding his sentence of banishment, he still retained his post of grand inquisi- tor of Aragon. As early as 1376 he had compiled, as a guide for inquisitors, his " Direct orium inquisitorum", the only one of his more extensive works that was afterwards printed (Barcelona, 1503; Rome, 1578, ed. Francesco Pegna, with a copious commentary; reis- sued several times). Towards the end of 1397 Ey- meric returned to his native land and his monastery of Gerona, where he died. His epitaph describes him as prcedicator veridicus, inquisitor intrepidus, doctor egre- gius.

QuETiF AND EcHARD, Script, ord.prced. (Paris, 1719), I, 709- 17, with the titles of thirty-five of Eymeric's works, contained in ele\en M.'^S. volumes; Hurter, Nomendalor (Innsbruck, 19001, 710-1-'; Ehrle in Archiv fiir Literalur- und Kirchcn- dtstlL. rirs M. .1.. I.43sqq.

J. P. KiRSCH.

Eyre, Thomas, first president of Ushaw College ; b. at Glos.sop, Derbyshire, in 1748; d. at Ushaw, 8 May, 1810. He was the fourth son of Nathaniel Eyre and Jane Broomhcad. On 24 June, 17.58, he, with his brothers Edward and John, arrived at Esquerchin, n(':ir Douai, the preparatory school for the English college. Having passed through school and college alike with credit, he remained after his ordination as general prefect and master of the classes known as rhetoric and poetry. In 1775 Mr. Eyre returned to England to take charge of the Stella mission near Newcastle, on the invitation of his kinsman, Thom;is Eyre. Wliile here he brought out a new edition of the


works of Gother and also made a collection of mate- rials (now in the Ushaw archives) with the intention of continuing Dodd's "Church History". His scheme for a new edition of Bishop Challoner's Bible was given up at the request of Bishop Thomas Talbot. In 1792 he removed from Stella Hall to Wooler and thence to Pontop Hall in Durham. In 1794 Bishop Gibson de- sired him to take charge of the Northern students who had been expelled from Douai, and who were then temporarily at Tudhoe under Lingard, the famous historian, who had not yet been ordained priest. Mr. Eyre removed these students first to Pontop Hall and in October, 1794, to Crook Hall, where he became president of the new college. Though he was willing to resign this post in favour of Mr. Daniel, president of Douai, this suggested arrangeiuent came to nothing and Mr. EjTe remained president. In 1803 an estate called Ushaw was bought by the bishop, and here, early in 1804, the new college was begun, and in July, 1808, Mr. Eyre began to remove his community thither. On 2 August he himself entered and the transfer of St. Cuthbert's College from Crook Hall to Ushaw was complete. Mr. Eyre died at Ushaw, lea\'ing a considerable sum to the college for profes- sorships and burses. Besides the edition of Gother's works he brought out, in separate fonn, Gother's " In- structions for Confirmation" (Newcastle, 1783), and Gobinet's "Instruction of Youth in Christian Piety".

Kirk, Memoirs of Eighteenth Century Catholics (London, 190.S); CiLLOw, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath. (London, 1886), II. 199- 202; Cooper in Diet. Nat. Biog. (London, 1889), XVIII. 102; Laivg, Ushaw College Centenary Memorial (Newcastle, 1S95), with portrait.

Edwin Burton.

Eyston, Ch.vrles, antiquarj', b. 1667; d. 5 Nov., 1721; he was a member of the ancient family of Eyston, then and still of East Hendred, their house being one of the few places in England where the Blessed Sacrament has always been preserved. He was eldest son of George Eyston and of .\nn, daughter of Robert Dormer of Peterley. On the death of his father in 1691 he succeeded to the family estates, and in 1692 married Winefrid Dorothy, daughter of Basil Fitzherbert of Swinnerton, Staffordshire, by whom he had a large family. He was a good scholar and it was in his antiquarian researches that he became a friend of Thomas Hearne, who wrote of him: "He was a Roman Catholick and so charitable to the poor that he is lamented by all who knew anj-thing of him. . . . He was a man of a sweet temper and was an excellent scholar and so modest that he did not care to have it at any time mentioned." (Reliq. Hearnianae, cit. inf.) On his death he was succeeded by his .son, Charles. It is generally stated that another of his sons joined the Jesuits, but though his son, William George, entered the Society in 1736, he left it almost at once. Several of his daughters became nuns. He wrote: "A little Monument to The Once Famous Abbey and Borough of Glastonbury", published by Hearne in his " History and Antiquities of Glastonbury" (Oxford, 1722); re- printed bv the Rev. R. Warner in his " History of the Abbev of Glaston and the town of Glastonbury" (Bath, 1826). There is in the librarj- at Hendred an unpublished MS. entitled "A Poor Little Monument to .\11 the Old Pious Dissolved Foundations of Eng- land : or a Short History of .\bbeys, all sorts of Monas- teries, Colleges, Chapels, Chantries, etc." Another MS. mentioned under his name by Gillow was merely his property and not his work; and the same writer corrects Charles Butler's error in ascribing to Eyston a "History of the Reformation", published in 1685.

He\rne, Reliquia: Hearniance (London, 1869), II. Ill; Kirk, Memoirs of Eighteenth Century Catholics (London, 1908); Burke, Histori/ of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland (London 1S34) I. 12; Idem, Landed Genlrii (Ix)ndon, 1886). I, 601; C.II.LOW. Bibl. Did. Eng. Cath. (London, 1886), II, 204; CtooPEH in Diet. Xal. Biog., Will, 105.

Edwin Burton.