Short account of the life of this young layman who was martyred in 1591 for words allegedly uttered when he was seriously ill.

The Greek word laura is employed by writers from the end of the fifth century to distinguish the monasteries of Palestine of the semi-eremitical type. The word signifies a narrow way or passage, and in later times the quarter of a town.

Article on the canonical hour once known as Matins, then as Lauds, now as Morning Prayer. One of the two principal hours.

The opening words (used as a title of the sequence composed by St. Thomas Aquinas, about the year 1264, for the Mass of Corpus Christi.

In classical Greek originally meant "the state of a hired servant" (Aesch., "Prom.", 966), and so service generally. It is used especially for Divine service (Plato, "Apol.", 23 B). In Christian literature it came to have a technical sense for the supreme honour due to His servants, the angels and saints.

A prominent French zoologist; born at Brives, 29 November, 1762; died in Paris, 6 February, 1833.

Florentine philosopher and statesman, born at Florence, c. 1210; the son of Buonaccorso Latini, died 1294.

The Latin in the official textbooks of the Church (the Bible and the Liturgy), as well as in the works of those Christian writers of the West who have undertaken to expound or defend Christian beliefs.

This article deals only with the relations of the classical literature, chiefly Latin, to the Catholic Church.

During the Middle Ages the so-called church Latin was to a great extent the language of poetry, and it was only on the advent of the Renaissance that classical Latin revived and flourished in the writings of the neo-Latinists as it does even today though to a more modest extent.

The Latin language was not at first the literary and official organ of the Christian Church in the West. The Gospel was announced by preachers whose language was Greek, and these continued to use Greek, if not in their discourses, at least in their most important acts.

The Latin Church is simply that vast portion of the Catholic body which obeys the Latin patriarch, which submits to the pope, not only in papal, but also in patriarchal matters.

Poet, novelist. (1851-1898)

This is the oldest, and ranks first among the four great "patriarchal" basilicas of Rome.

Established by Pius IX in 1854, in the Palazzo del Laterano erected by Sixtus V on the part of the site of the ancient Lateran palace destroyed by fire in 1308. In 1843 the "profane" Museum of the Lateran was founded by Gregory XVI, in whose pontificate also was mooted the idea of establishing a museum of Christian antiquities in the same edifice.

A series of five important councils held at Rome from the twelfth to the sixteen century.

In September, 1178, the pope in agreement with an article of the Peace of Venice, convoked an ecumenical council at the Lateran for Lent of the following year and, with that object, sent legates to different countries.

To efface the last vestiges of the schism, to condemn various errors and reform abuses among clergy and people Innocent, in the month of April, 1139, convoked, at the Lateran, the tenth ecumenical council.

From the commencement of his reign Innocent III had purposed to assemble an ecumenical council, but only towards the end of his pontificate could he realize this project, by the Bull of 19 April, 1213. The assembly was to take place in November, 1215.

It put a stop to the arbitrary conferring of ecclesiastical benefices by laymen, reestablished freedom of episcopal and abbatial elections, separated spiritual from temporal affairs, and ratified the principle that spiritual authority can emanate only from the Church; lastly it tacitly abolished the exorbitant claim of the emperors to interfere in papal elections.

Convoked, by the Bull of 18 July, 1511, to assemble 19 April, 1512, in the church of St. John Lateran.

Historian, born at Latera, near Viterbo, 23 November, 1733; died at Viterbo, 27 February, 1813.

Born at Mimbaste near Dax, France, 21 February, 1822; died at Rennes, 10 May, 1847; was the youngest child of simple pious peasants.