GASQUET, gas'Ica', Francis Aidan, CAR DINAL, English Catholic divine and historian: b. London, 5 Oct. 1846. He was educated at Downside, became a novice of the Benedictines at Belmont in 1865 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1874. He was prior of Downgide from 1878 to 1885. During his term of office the school was modernized and the abbey church begun and carried on toward com pletion. In 1886 he began systematic historical research work. He was a member of Leo XIII's Commission on Anglican Orders in 1896; was the recipient of a brief from that pontiff dated 17 March 1897 and was appointed by Pius X a consultor of the pontifical Com mission for the Reunion of Dissident Churches. He was abbot-president of the English Bene dictine Congregation and abbot-titular of Saint Alban's, Reading, in 1900-14. During his term of office, Downside, Arnpleforth and Donai-at Woolhampton were raised to the rank of ab beys; a house of studies was opened near the British Museum, and another at Cambridge. In 1907 he was appointed president of the Com mission formed to examine the text of the Latin Vulgate Bible and to collect material for amending it. At the last consistory held by Pius X, in May 1914, he was created a cardinal priest by the title of Saint George in Velahro (Cardinal Newman's titular church). This
church he resigned in 1916 for that of Santa Maria in the Campitelli. As a writer Cardinal Gasquet has won a generally conceded suprem acy as the authority on Pre-Reformation monasticism in English. Among the works which have gained him his pre-eminence as a historian are 'Henry VIII and the English Monasteries) (1888439) ; 'Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer' (1890) ; 'The Great Pestilence' (1893); 'The Last Abbot of Glastonbury' (1895); 'A Sketch of Monastic Constitutional History' (1896) ; 'The Old Eng lish Bible and Other Essays) (1897); 'The Eve of the Reformation' (1900) ; 'A Short History of the Catholic Church in (1903) • Anglo-Premonstratensia) (Vol. I, 1904, Vol. II, 1906); 'English Monas tic Life' (1903); 'Vita Antiquissima Beati Gregorii Magni' (1903); 'Henry III and the (1905); 'Lord Acton and his Circle) (1906); 'Parish Life in Medimval England' (1906); 'The' Greater Abbeys of England' (1908) ; 'The Bosworth Psalter' (1908). He is also known as the editor of Montalembert's 'Monks of the West); 'Lord Acton's Letters,' and other works.