Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/358

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

in Oxford Street, and continued it for three years. Mr. Hart, a well-known picture dealer, offered to purchase all the unsold works which the Foggos had by them. The offer, gladly accepted, came to nothing, owing to the premature death of the purchaser. The brothers were much esteemed in private life for many excellent qualities, and their friends were numerous and sincere. Foggo died in London 14 Sept. 1860, and was buried in the Highgate cemetery.

[Authorities under George Foggo.]

L. C.

FOILLAN, Saint and Bishop (d. 655), brother of Fursa [q. v.], left Ireland with his brother, and passing through Wales settled in East Anglia, where he was received by King Sigebert. When Fursa, having completed his monastery of Cnoberesburgh, was about to retire to the hermitage of his brother Ultan, he placed the monastery in charge of Foillan and two others. Fursa, some time after, was driven abroad by the disturbed state of the country, and settled in the territory of Neustria. Foillan some time later left Cnoberesburgh, and with Ultan followed Fursa to the continent. Here they were invited to settle in Brabant, to the north of Peronne, by Gertrude, daughter of Pepin, abbess of Nivelles. She wished them to instruct her community, especially in music, for which the Irish were famous. With the aid of Gertrude they erected a monastery at Fosse, not far from Nivelles, over which Ultan was placed, Foillan remaining in charge of the establishment at Nivelles. Foillan, when travelling through the forest of Soignies in Hainault with three of his disciples, was set upon by robbers and slain on 31 Oct., and probably in 655. The bodies were not discovered until 16 Jan. following. This day was afterwards observed as that of the Invention of St. Foillan. He was buried at Fosse, and in the calendar of Œngus and other authorities is accounted a martyr, doubtless because he was killed in the discharge of his duty. He appears to have been a bishop, but the story of his having been consecrated by Pope Martin I seems to have no better foundation than the idea which possessed many mediæval writers that every one ought to have gone to Rome. The monasteries of Fosse and Peronne, with that of St. Quinton, formed one of those groups of Irish monasteries which were so frequent on the continent in that age, and performed an important part in sowing the seeds of religion and civilisation among barbarian tribes.

[Colgan, Acta Sanct. 99–103; Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. ii. 464–6; Ussher's Works; Calendar of Œngus, clxi.]

T. O.

FOLBURY, GEORGE (d. 1540), master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, graduated B.A. at Cambridge in 1514, was preacher to the university in 1519, took the degree of B.D. in 1524, was presented to a canonry and to the prebend of North Newbald in his church of York in March 1531, to the rectory of Maidwell, Northamptonshire, on 20 Feb. 1533-4, elected master of Pembroke Hall in 1537, and died between 10 July and 10 Nov. 1540. He is said to have been for a time tutor to Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond, natural son of Henry VIII, but this is not confirmed by the memoir of the duke published in 'Camden Miscellany,' vol. iii. Bale states that he took the degree of D.D. at Montpelier, and that he was a poet, orator, and epigrammatist. His works seem to have perished.

[Cooper's Athenae Cantabr.; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. iii. 674; Letters and Papers, For. and Dom. Henry VIII, vol. v. g. 166, 31; Bale's Scriptt. Illustr. Maj. Brit. (Basel, 1557), cent ix. 27.]

J. M. R.

FOLCARD or FOULCARD (fl. 1066), hagiographer, a Fleming by race and birth, was a monk of St. Bertin's in Flanders, who is supposed to have come over to England in the reign of Edward the Confessor. He entered the monastery of the Holy Trinity or Christ Church, Canterbury, and was renowned for his learning, and especially for his knowledge of grammar and music; his manners were affable and his temper cheerful. Soon after the Conquest the king set him over the abbey of Thorney, Cambridgeshire; but he was never strictly abbot, for he did not receive the benediction. After holding the abbey about sixteen years he retired, owing to a dispute with the Bishop of Lincoln, evidently Remigius, and returned, as may be fairly inferred from Orderic, to his own land. The statement in the ‘Monasticon’ that he was deposed by Lanfranc at the council of Gloucester in 1084 seems to lack foundation. Either while he was a monk at Canterbury, or during his residence at Thorney, which seems more probable, he and his monastery were in some trouble, and were helped by Aldred [q. v.], archbishop of York, who persuaded the queen either of the Confessor or of the Conqueror to interest herself in their cause. In return Folcard wrote the ‘Life of Archbishop John of Beverley’ for Aldred. His works are: 1. ‘Vita S. Bertini,’ dedicated to Bovo, abbot of St. Bertin's from 1043 to 1065, and printed in Mabillon's ‘Acta SS. O. S. B.’ III. ii. 104, and in Migne's ‘Patrologia,’ cxlvii. 1082. 2. ‘Vita Audomari,’ in Mabillon, ii. 557, and Migne. 3. A poem ‘in honorem