College of St Omer
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The College of St Omer was an expatriate institution for the Catholic education of English students, that operated from 1593 to 1793. It was located at Saint-Omer, in Artois, France, then part of the Spanish Low countries. Through most of its history, it was operated by the Jesuits. It was succeeded by the College of Bruges, the College of Liege, and finally Stonyhurst College.
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[edit] Founding
During the reign of Elizabeth I Catholic education was outlawed in England. The English church had created several colleges in continental Europe to make up for this, at Douai, Rome, and Valladolid, but these primarily addressed the training of priests. Father Robert Parsons (1546-1610), had been instrumental in founding the school at Valladolid, but recognized a need for a school for laymen. Saint-Omer was chosen as a site conveniently close to England (it is 24 miles from Calais), and ruled by Spain as part of Flanders.
The college was originally founded in 1594 as the English Jesuit College at St Omer in Flanders. In 1599 it gained the direct patronage of King Philip. After an initial period of growth and prosperity, the unrest caused by the English Civil War caused the number of students to drop as low as 24 in 1645. As stability returned to the government, the school's effectiveness was also restored.
[edit] French rule
St. Omer and much of the province of Artois were formally ceded to France in 1658. But the Catholic French monarchy was as friendly to the school as the Spanish crown had been before. As the eighteenth century began, two fires ravaged the town and the university. But each time it was rebuilt, and even expanded. Buildings from this second reconstruction in the 1720s remained in use into the twentieth century, serving as a military hospital in World War I.
The college enjoyed its greatest period of prosperity, which extended from around 1720 to 1762. During a period when formal sworn affiliation with the Church of England was required to attend Oxford and Cambridge, it provided advanced education for several generations of English Catholics. Since the colleges founded in the American colonies were also church affiliated, Catholic families there sent young men to St. Omer for education.
[edit] Bruges, Liege, Stonyhurst
In 1762, the Jesuits were formally expelled from France, beginning the college's decline and eventual end. The expulsion split the college. The Jesuit faculty and many of the students fled to Belgium, moving first to Bruges, and then operating under the protection of the Bishop of Liège from 1773. King Louis XV continued the college at St. Omer, under the direction of secular clergy. When the Jesuit order was suppressed everywhere in 1773, this dual system ended, but the college never regained its prominence.
In 1793, the French Revolution ended the St. Omer college. The faculty and students were imprisoned until February 1795. English penal laws had changed regarding Catholic education, so when released, some of the staff and most of the then about 100 students returned to England. A former student, Thomas Weld, donated a mansion and grounds at Stonyhurst, in Lancashire. The modern school, Stonyhurst College continues to this day as a direct linear descendant of the College of St. Omer.
[edit] Notable Alumni
Alumni include: three Saints,[1] twelve Beati,[2] and twenty-two martyrs.[3]
- St Philip Evans SJ, executed at Tyburn in 1679.
- St Thomas Garnet SJ, protomartyr of St Omers, one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, executed at Tyburn in 1608.
- St John Plessington, executed at Chester in 1679.
- Daniel Carroll, Maryland delegate, signer of the United States Constitution
- William Ireland
- Arthur Murphy barrister, journalist, actor, biographer, translator and playwright[4]
[edit] Rectors and Superiors
Below is a list of those who led the College from its foundation until the move to England.[5] Marmaduke Stone, the last President of Liege was also the first President of Stonyhurst College and re-established the Society of Jesus in Britain in 1803 at Stonyhurst.
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St Omers (1593-1762)
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Bruges (1762-1773)
Liège (1773-1794)
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[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ T.E. Muir, Stonyhurst, p.188
- ^ T.E. Muir, Stonyhurst, p.188
- ^ T.E. Muir, Stonyhurst, p.188
- ^ Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 89: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Dramatists, Third Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Paula R. Backscheider, University of Rochester. The Gale Group, 1989. pp. 265-280.
- ^ T.E. Muir, Stonyhurst College
