- John Fenn (priest)
John Fenn (born at
Montacute nearWells, Somerset ; d.27 December 1615 ) was an EnglishRoman Catholic priest and writer, in exile underElizabeth I of England . He was the elder brother ofJames Fenn , the Catholic martyr, andRobert Fenn .Life
After being a chorister at
Wells Cathedral , he went toWinchester School in 1547, and in 1550 toNew College, Oxford , of which he was elected Fellow in 1552. Next year he became head master of theBury St. Edmunds ' grammar-school, but was deprived of this office and also of his fellowship for refusing to take theoath of supremacy under Elizabeth.He went to Rome where after four years' study he was ordained priest about 1566. Having for a time been chaplain to Sir William Stanley's regiment in
Flanders , he settled atLouvain , where he lived for forty years.In 1609, when the English Augustinian Canonnesses founded St. Monica's Priory at Louvain, he became their first chaplain, until in 1611 when his sight failed. He continued to live in the priory, until his death.
Works
He contributed to the publication, in 1583, by
John Gibbons , S.J., of various accounts of persecution of English Catholics, under the title "Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholicae in Angliâ". This was the groundwork of the larger collection published byBridgewater under the same name in 1588.Besides his "Vitae quorundam Martyrum in Angliâ", included in the "Concertatio", he translated into Latin
John Fisher 's "Treatise on the penitential Psalms" (1597) and two of his sermons; he also published English versions of the Catechism of theCouncil of Trent ,Osorio 's reply toHaddon 's attack on his letter to Queen Elizabeth (1568),Guerra 's "Treatise of Tribulation", an Italian life ofCatherine of Sienna (1609; 1867), andLoarte 's "Instructions How to Meditate the Misteries of the Rosarie".He also collected from old English sources some spiritual treatises for the
Brigettine nuns ofSyon .References
*PITS, De Illustribus Angliae Scriptoribus (Paris, 1623);
*DODD, Church History (Brussels, 1737-42), I, 510;
*Anthony à Wood , ed. BLISS, Athenae Oxonienses, II,;
*Joseph Gillow , Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v. ;
*COOPER in Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v. ;
*HAMILTON, Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses of St. Monica's Louvain (London, 1904).
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