, an eminent canonist, was born at Louvain in 1646, “and after taking
, an eminent canonist,
was born at Louvain in 1646, “and after taking his degree
of doctor of laws in 1675, filled a chair in the college of
pope Adrian VI. with great success. Being fond of retirement and study, he is only known to the world by his
writings. Having lost his sight in the sixty-fifth year of
his age, by a cataract, which was removed two years afterwards, he neither lost any thing of his vivacity nor his application. His sentiments on the Formulary, and on the
frull Unigenitus, and the kind of approbation which he
gave to the consecration of Steenoven, archbishop of
Utrecht, brought on him much unmerited persecution,
chiefly from the envy of individuals. What they made
him suffer, however, forced him to retire to Maestricht,
and then to Amersfort, where he died, Oct. 2, 1728, at the
age of eighty-three. Van Espen is doubtless one of the
most learned canonists of his times. His principal work,
still consulted, is his
” Jus ecclesiasticum universum,“in
which the most important points of ecclesiastical discipline
are circumstantially discussed with profound knowledge of.
the subject. At Paris, under the imprint of Louvain, was
published, in 1753, a collection of all the works of Van
Espen, in 4 vols. folio. This edition, which is enriched
with the observations of Gibert on the
” Jus ecclesiasticum," and the notes of father Barre, a canoiv-regular of
St. Genevieve, contains every particular of importance in
ethics, the canon, and even the civil law, and since that
time a supplementary volume was published by Gabriel de
Bellegarde.
, an eminent canonist, was a native of Sicily, and commonly called
, an eminent canonist, was a native of Sicily, and commonly called Panormitanus, from his being at the head of a Benedictine abbey in Palermo, and afterwards archbishop of that city. He was born probably towards the close of the fourteenth century, some say in 1336, and became one of the most celebrated canonists of his time. He was present at the council of Basil, and had a considerable hand in the proceedings there against pope Eugenius; in recompense for which service he was made a 1 cardinal by Felix V. in 1440. He was afterwards obliged, by the orders of the king of Arragon his master, to return to his archbishopric, where he died of the plague in 1445. There is a complete edition of his works, Venice, 1617, in 9 vols. fol. Dupin mentions as his principal work a treatise on the council of Basil, which was translated into French about the end of the seventeenth century by Dr. Gerbais, of the Sorbonne, and printed at Paris.