LIGONIER, JOHN (JEAN LOUIS) LIGONIER, EARL, cr. 1766 (168o-177o), British field marshal, came of a Huguenot family settled in England. He served throughout Marlborough's campaigns in Flanders (1702-1o). In 1720 he became colonel of the "Black Horse" (now 7th Dragoon Guards), a command which he retained for a period of 29 years. At Fontenoy Ligonier com manded the British foot, and acted throughout the battle as adviser to the duke of Cumberland. During the "Forty-Five" he was called home to command the British army in the Midlands, but in Jan. 1746 was placed at the head of the British and British paid contingents of the Allied army in the Low Countries. He was present at Roucoux (Oct. II, 1746), and, as general of horse, at Val (July 1, where he led the charge of the British cavalry, his horse being killed and he himself taken prisoner, though ex changed in a few days. With the close of the campaign ended Ligonier's active career, but (with a brief interval in 1756-57) he occupied various high civil and military posts to the close of his life. In 1766 he became field marshal.
See Combes, J. L. Ligonier, une etude (Castres, 1866), and the his tories of the 7th Dragoon Guards and Grenadier Guards. LIGUORI, ALFONSO MARIA DEI saint, was born at Marianella, near Naples, on Sept. 27, 1696, the son of Giuseppe dei Liguori, a Neapolitan noble. He began life at the bar, but in 1726 he entered the Congregation of Missions as a novice, and became a priest in 1726. In 1732 he founded the "Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer" at Scala, near Salerno ; the headquarters of the Order were afterwards trans ferred to Nocera dei Pagani. Its members, popularly called Liguorians or Redemptorists, devoted themselves to the religious instruction of the poor, more especially in country districts; Liguori specially forbade them to undertake secular educational work. In 1750 appeared his devotional book on the Glories of Mary; three years later came his still more celebrated treatise on moral theology, enlarged and translated into Latin under the title of Homo Apostolicus (1755) . In 1762 he became bishop of Sant' Agata dei Goti, a small town in the province of Benevent ; though he had previously refused the archbishopric of Palermo. In 1775 he resigned his bishopric, retiring to his Redemptorists at Nocera, where he died in 1787. In 1796 Pius VI. declared him "vener
able"; he was beatified by Pius VII. in 1816, canonized by Gregory XVI. in 1839, and finally declared one of the nineteen "Doctors of the Church" by Pius IX. in 1871.
Liguori is the chief representative of a school of casuistry and devotional theology still abundantly represented within the Roman Church. The gist of his system, which is known as "equi probabilism," is that the more indulgent opinion may always be followed, whenever the authorities in its favour are as good, or nearly as good, as those on the other side. In this way he claimed that he had secured liberty in its rights without allowing it to degenerate into licence. However much they might person ally disapprove, zealous priests could not forbid their parishioners to dance on Sunday, if the practice had won widespread toleration ; on the other hand, they could not relax the usual discipline of the church on the strength of a few unguarded opinions of too indul gent casuists. Thus the Liguorian system surpassed all its prede cessors in securing uniformity in the confessional on a basis of established usage.
Works: (a) Collected editions. Italian: (Monza, 1819, 1828; Venice, 1830; Naples, 1840 ff.; Turin, 1887, ff.). French: (Tournai, 1855 ff., new ed., 1895 ff.) German: (Regensburg, 1842-47). English: (22 vols., New York, 1887-95). Editions of the Theologia Moralis and other separate works are very numerous. (b) Letters: (2 vols., Monza, 1831 ; 3 vols., Rome, 1887 ff.). See also Meyrick, Moral and Devotional Theology of the Church of Rome, according to the Teaching of S. Alfonso de Liguori (1857) ; A. Pichler, Der heilige Alfonso v. Liguori (1922) ; Kewsh, Die Aszetic des heiligen Alfonso v. Liguori (1924); and art. CASUISTRY.