Overview

This is a four volume set Volume 1 contains January, February and March Volume 2 contains April, May and June Volume 3 contains July, August and September Volume 4 contains October, November and December. It also contains the main index to the set. Thisi s volume 1. I T is now over a quarter of a century since Father Herbert Thurston, S.J., was asked to undertake a drastic revision and bringing up-to-date of Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints. The first, January, volume was published in 1926. Beginning with the second, February, volume (1930), Father Thurston invoked the help of Miss Norah Leeson in the revision or rewriting of many of the lives that appear in Butler and the compilation of others; and Miss Leeson continued to contribute in this way down to the end of the June volume, as is testified by Father Thurston's repeated grateful acknowledgements to her in the pertinent prefaces (notably June, page viii). Beginning with the July volume (1932), the present editor was entrusted with the preparation of practically the whole of the text and the writing of additions thereto, down to the end of the series in 1938. Throughout the whole work Father Thurston himself always wrote the bibliographical and other notes at the end of each .. life. The general principles upon which the work was done are set out in Father Thurston's own words in the introduction which follows. In this edition a uniform order of presentation has been adopted, With a few special exceptions (e.g. March I, June 9, July 9, September 26) the first saint (or feast) dealt with each day is that which is commemorated in the general calendar of the 'Western church, when there is one. The order of the rest is chronological. The choice of day of the month on which a saint should be entered is a far less simple matter. In general I have followed Father Thurston's arrangement (which has involved not a few alterations of date): viz. to adopt in the case of canonized saints the indications of the 1930 (secunda post typicam) edition of the Martyrologium Romanum, and in the case of saints and beati not included in the martyrology, to deal with them, so far as was ascertainable, on the days appointed locally for their liturgical observance. This last rule, however, does not always provide any satisfactory guidance, for the same saint may be commemorated in half a dozen different dioceses on half a dozen different days. But for those who belong to religious orders a feast-day is usually assigned in the order itself, and this I have done my best to adhere to. 'Vhen for one reason or another (e, g. a very recently beatified subject) I have been unable to ascertain the feast-day, that person is entered under the day of his death. \ hile this work was in progress, the Friars Minor adopted a new calendar, too late for me to make more than some of the consequent changes of date. In the title of each entry the saint is generally described according to the categories of 'Western liturgical usage, except that the description confessor is omitted throughout: any male saint not a martyr is a confessor. Occasionally the description does not agree with the office at present in use: e, g. on July 29, Felix II is referred to as . pope and martyr by the Roman Martyrology and as martyr in the collects of the Missal and Breviary; but he was neither a true pope nor a martyr.

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