Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/302

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Deicola
296
De Keyser

we may presume, the canonical hours of the rule of St. Columbanus. The priest was very angry at the intrusion, and, to prevent his further access to the church, the windows and doors were stopped with briars and thorns. It should be observed that Columbanus and his monks were in constant trouble with the French clergy for several years before his expulsion in consequence of his continuing to observe the customs of the Irish church in spite of bishops and synods. Hence the priest considered his prayers rather as ‘incantations,’ while the people revered his ascetic life. The proprietor of Luthra, Weifhart, ordered Deicola to be punished, but having died immediately afterwards, his wife, persuaded that his death was a judgment, entreated the prayers of Deicola for him. The saint consented, and his prayers were successful in rescuing his soul from hell, a circumstance which Colgan and others endeavour to explain. The site of Luthra was then granted to Deicola by Weifhart's widow. This monastery, afterwards known as Lure, was situated in the diocese of Besançon, among the Vosges between Vesoul and Belfort. Clothaire subsequently conferred additional privileges on it out of regard for Columbanus, who is said to have foretold his succession to the kingdom. But the inhabitants of that district were a fierce and rapacious people, and Deicola, ‘considering anxiously under what princely protection he could place it,’ finally resolved to go to Rome and ask for the pope's protection. Arriving there with some companions, the pope inquired why he came so far. ‘I am a brother,’ he replied, ‘of Irish birth and an exile for Christ, and I live in the part of Gaul called Burgundy, where I have built two oratories,’ adding that he wished to place Lure under the protection of the prince of the apostles, and was ready to pay ten silver solidi for the privilege of a charter. The coin intended seems to be the gold solidus, which, according to the Ripuarian law, was of the value of two cows. Having secured this and the promise of the pope's anathema against his enemies, he returned home with joy, bringing with him some relics. Dr. Lanigan thinks this story of his visit to Rome savours of a later age, and that the Burgundian kings would have resented such an embassy. After this he appointed one of his monks, named Columbinus, as his successor, and pining for greater seclusion and a stricter life, he built for himself a little oratory, and consecrated it in the name of the Trinity, and thus ‘he who formerly resembled Martha now became like Mary, devoted to contemplation.’

He died on 18 Jan. about 625, and was buried in his own oratory. The name Deicola is considered by Colgan and Lanigan as identical with the Irish Dichuill (in France Diel or Deel, with varieties of spelling). Haddan, without giving authorities, distinguishes them, and holds that Lure was founded by ‘Deicolus or Desle, a disciple of Columbanus,’ and another monastery not named was founded by Dichuill or St. Diè. The ‘Life of Deicola,’ by the Bollandists, is from a manuscript of Lure, which they assign to the tenth century. It was by one acquainted with the appearance and habits of the Irish clergy abroad. For the most part, Irishmen who became eminent on the continent were lost sight of by the church at home, but Deicola is an exception, as his name is found in the martyrology of Donegal.

[Bollandists' Acta Sanct., 18 Jan., ii. 563; Lanigan's Eccles. Hist. ii. 439; Gould's Lives of the Saints, i. 280; Haddan's Remains, p. 275; Wattenbach in the Ulster Journal of Archæology, July 1859; Martyrology of Donegal; O'Hanlon's Lives of the Irish Saints, i. 305.]

T. O.

DEIOS, LAURENCE (fl. 1607), divine, a native of Shropshire, matriculated in the university of Cambridge as a pensioner of St. John's College in 1571, perhaps coming from Oxford. He graduated B.A. at Cambridge in January 1572–3, was admitted on 12 March following a fellow of St. John's on the Lady Margaret's foundation, commenced M.A. in 1576, and proceeded B.D. in 1583. At different periods he held in his college the offices of Hebrew lecturer, preacher, sacrist, and junior dean. From 24 June 1590 to December 1591 he was rector of East Horsley, Surrey. Subsequently he became a preacher in London. He was in needy circumstances in 1607. Some Latin verses by him preface John Stockwood's ‘Disputationes Grammaticales;’ and he published: ‘That the Pope is that Anti-Christ; and an answer to the objections of Sectaries, which condemn this Church of England,’ London, 1590, 8vo, containing two treatises, or sermons, one of which was preached at St. Paul's Cross.

[Baker's St. John's (Mayor), i. 289, 333, 334; Baker's MS. xxxix. 98; Brayley and Britton's Surrey, ii. 70; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. ii. 476, 555; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 915, 1151.]

T. C.

DE KEYSER, WILLIAM (1647–1692?), painter, was a native of Antwerp and by profession originally a jeweller, with a large and prosperous business at Antwerp. Being de-