Bollandist

The Bollandist Society (Latin: Societas Bollandistarum; French: Société des Bollandistes) is an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits, but now including non-Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christianity.

[2] The task was to search out and classify materials, to print what seemed to be the most reliable sources of information concerning the saints venerated by the Church and to illustrate points of difficulty.

From July 1660 until December 1662, Henschenius and Papebrochius travelled through Germany, Italy and France in order to collect copies of hagiographic manuscripts.

In writing of St. Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem and author of the Carmelite rule, Papebrochius had stated in his preliminary commentary that the tradition universally received by the Carmelites that the origin of the order dated back to the prophet Elijah, who was regarded as its founder, was insufficiently grounded.

By the time the Society of Jesus was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the Bollandists had produced 50 volumes in 130 years.

They had also moved from Antwerp to Brussels, where they continued their work in the monastery of the Coudenberg until 1788, when the Bollandist Society was suppressed by the Austrian government of the Low Countries.

In 1882, a quarterly review on critical hagiography was established under the title of Analecta Bollandiana, which still exists today and publishes supplements to the Acta.

[8] The Bollandists' studies led to the texts of the Missale Romanum, the Liturgia Horarum and the Martyrologium referring to Mary of Magdala.

[10] The Bollandist Society has an important role in The Deptford Trilogy by Canadian novelist Robertson Davies.

The series' protagonist, though not a Catholic, takes a deep interest in saints and their lives, and his scholarly efforts are welcomed by the Bollandists.