Nationality British Ordination December 19, 1874 Education Downside School | Name Francis Gasquet | |
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Created Cardinal Cardinal deacon 25 May 1914; elevated to Cardinal priest 18 December 1924 Rank Cardinal deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro (1914–1915); Cardinal deacon, later Cardinal priest, of Santa Maria in Portico (1915–1929) Buried Downside Abbey, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset, England Parents Raymon Gasquet and Mary Apollonia Gasquet (nee Kay) Died April 5, 1929, Rome, Italy Place of burial Stratton-on-the-Fosse, United Kingdom People also search for Edmund Bishop, John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, William Cobbett Books eve of the Reformation, English Monastic Life, The Great Pestilence (A D 134, Henry VIII And the English M, The Black Death of 1348 and | ||
Denomination Roman Catholic Church | ||
Francis aidan gasquet
Francis Aidan Gasquet, O.S.B. (born Francis Neil Gasquet, 5 October 1846 – 5 April 1929) was an English Benedictine monk and historical scholar. He was created Cardinal in 1914.
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Life
Gasquet was born in London.
Educated at Downside School, he entered the Benedictines in 1865 at Belmont Priory. He moved to Downside Abbey where he was professed and, on 19 December 1871, ordained a priest. From 1878 to 1885 he was prior of Downside Abbey, resigning because of ill health.
Upon his recovery he became a member of the Pontifical Commission to study the validity of the Anglican ordinations (1896) leading to Apostolicae curae, to which his historical contribution was major. In 1900, he became abbot president of the English Benedictines. He was President of the Pontifical Commission for Revision of the Vulgate, 1907. He also authored the major history of the Venerable English College at Rome.
He was created Cardinal-deacon in 1914 with the titular see of San Giorgio in Velabro. He was conferred with the titular see of Santa Maria in Portico in 1915.
In 1917, he was appointed Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives. In 1924, he was appointed Librarian of the Vatican Library and elevated to Cardinal Priest of Santa Maria in Portico.
He died in Rome.
As a historian
His historical work has been attacked by later writers. Geoffrey Elton wrote of "the falsehoods purveyed by Cardinal Gasquet and Hilaire Belloc." His collaboration with Edmund Bishop has been described as "an alliance between scholarship exquisite and deplorable." A polemical campaign by G. G. Coulton against Gasquet was largely successful in discrediting his works in academic eyes. One of his books contained an appendix "A Rough List of Misstatements and Blunders in Cardinal Gasquet's Writings.
David Knowles wrote a reasoned piece of apologetics on Gasquet's history in 1956, Cardinal Gasquet as an Historian. In it he speaks of Gasquet's "many errors and failings", and notes that he "was not an intellectually humble man and he showed little insight into his own limitations of knowledge and training." Coulton, though, he felt was in error, through over-simplifying the case.
Eamon Duffy said in an interview: