Ninian Winzet
Ninian Winȝet or Winzet (/ˈwɪnjət/ WIN-yət; 1518–1592) was a Scottish Catholic priest and polemical writer. For more on the spelling of his name, see yogh.
Life
Winzet was born in Renfrew, Scotland, and was probably educated at the University of Glasgow. He was ordained priest in 1540, and in 1552 was appointed master of the grammar school of Linlithgow, from which town he was later "expellit and schott out" by the partisans of Dean Patrick Kinlochy, "preacher" there. He had also enjoyed the office of Provost of the Collegiate Church of St Michael in that town. He retired to Edinburgh, where the return of Mary, Queen of Scots, from France had given heart to the Catholics.[1]
There he took part in the pamphlet war which then raged, and entered into conflict with John Knox and other leading reformers. He appears to have acted for a time as confessor to the queen. In July 1562, when engaged in the printing of his Last Blast, he narrowly escaped the vengeance of his opponents, who had by that time gained the upper hand in the capital, and he fled, on 3 September, with the nuncio Gouda, to Leuven.[1]
He reached Paris in 1565 and became a member of the "German Nation" of the university. At Queen Mary's request he joined Bishop Leslie on his embassy to Queen Elizabeth I in 1571, and remained with the bishop after his removal by Elizabeth's orders to ward at Fenny Staunton, Huntingdonshire.[1]
When further suspicion fell on Leslie and he was committed to the Tower, Winzet was permitted to return to Paris. There he continued his studies, and in 1574 left for Douai, where in the following year he became a licentiate. He was in residence at Rome from 1575 to 1577, and was then appointed by Pope Gregory XIII abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St James, Regensburg. There he died on 21 September 1592.[2]
Winzet's works were almost entirely controversial. He justified his literary activity on the side of Catholicism on the double plea of conscience and the inability of the bishops and theologians to supply the necessary arguments (hies' Tractate, ed. STS, i. p. so). "We may nawayis langer contene vs," he wrote, "bot expresse on al sydis as we think, referring our iugement to the haly Catholik Kirk."[3]
In his first work, Certaine Tractates (three in number), printed in 1562, he rated his fellow clergy for negligence and sin, invited replies from Knox regarding his authority as minister and his share in the new ecclesiastical constitution, and protested against the interference with Catholic burgesses by the magistrates of Edinburgh. The Last Blast, which was interrupted in publication, was an onslaught on heretics and a falsely ordained clergy.[3]
In his Buke of Four Scoir Thre Questions (1563), addressed to the "Calviniane Precheouris," in which he treated church doctrine, sacraments, priesthood, obedience to rulers, free-will and other matters, he was dogmatic rather than polemical. He translated the Commonitorium of Vincentius Lirinensis (1563), and wrote, in Latin, a Flagellum sectarionum and a Velitatio in Georgium Buchananum (1582).[3]
Works
Winzet's vernacular writings were edited by J. Hewison for the Scottish Text Society (2 vols, 1888, 1890). The Tractates were printed, with a preface by David Laing, by the Maitland Club (1835).[3]
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
Ninian Winzet — Benedictine abbot and controversial writer, b. at Renfrew, Scotland, 1518; d. at Ratisbon, 21 Sept., 1592. Educated (probably, though not certainly) at Glasgow University, he was ordained priest in 1540, and about 1551 became master of Linlithgow grammar school, and a little later provost of the collegiate church of St. Michael. When John Knox's "rascal multitude" was devastating the churches of Scotland in 1559, Winzet is said by Bishop Leslie to have publicly disputed with Knox at Linlithgow. After the change of religion in 1560 he was, with other ecclesiastics and teachers who refused to conform to Protestantism, ejected from his office. On Queen Mary's arrival in Edinburgh he went thither, at once threw himself into combat against the new doctrines, and published in 1562 his most famous work, "Certane Tractatis" — the first addressed to the queen, clergy, and nobles, the second to Knox, and the third to the provost and magistrates of Edinburgh. Their ability and erudition made an immediate impression. Winzet, who seems for a time to have been Mary's confessor, was just bringing out his "Last Blast of the Trompet of Godis Worde", when it was stopped by the civil authority, and the author fled from Scotland, reaching Louvain in Sept., 1562. Here he wrote a preface to his "Buke of Four Scoir Thre Questions" (collected from his earlier polemical writings in manuscript), which was published at Antwerp in Oct., 1563, with a postscript addressed to Knox; and a little later his translation of the "Commonitorium" of Vincent of Lerins, dedicated to Queen Mary, also appeared at Antwerp. From 1565 to 1570 Winzet resided in Paris, prosecuting his studies at the university and apparently doing tutorial work also, as well as acting for a time as proctor for the "natio Anglicana seu Germanica".
In 1571 he was attached by Queen Mary, then a captive in England, to the service of Bishop Leslie, her ambassador in London; but on Leslie's committal to the Tower Winzet returned to France, and stayed for a time at Douai. From 1575 to 1577 he was in Rome, and in June, 1577, Pope Gregory XIII appointed him abbot of St. James's Scots monastery at Ratisbon, dispensing him from the regular year's novitiate. He received the abbatial blessing in Rome from Goldwell, the exiled Bishop of St. Asaph, at once entered on his new duties, and succeeded by his energy and zeal in repairing the shattered fortunes of St. James's, which had suffered greatly in the upheaval of the Reformation. By his wise administration and efforts in the cause of education he won the favour and regard both of the Emperor Rudolph VI and of the Duke of Bavaria. During his fifteen years' tenure of the abbacy he continued his literary labours, publishing his "Flagellum Sectariorum" and "Velitatio in Georgium Buchananum" in 1581, as well as other works, some of then now lost. He died at Ratisbon, and was buried in the sanctuary of St. James's Church, where a monument with a eulogistic Latin epitaph marks his grave.
ZIEGLEBAUER, Hist. rei litter. Ordinis S. Benedicti (Augsburg, 1754), 360, 361; MACKENZIE, Lives of the most eminent Writers of the Scots Nation, II (Edinburgh, 1708-22), 148; DEMPTSER, Histor. Ecclesiast. Gent. Scotorum, II (Edinburgh, 1829), 5; Certane Tractatis, Maitland Club reprint (Edinbugrh, 1885), biographical introduction by GRACIE; HEWISON, Introduction to Certain Tractates, I (Edinburgh, Scottish Text Society, 1888), ix-xcviii, with a critical account of Winzet's writings; BELLESHEIM, Hist. of Cath. Church of Scotland, III (Edinburgh, 1887-90), 35-53.
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Back to citation occurrence 1.2 Chisholm 1911, p. 737.
- Back to citation Chisholm 1911, pp. 737–738.
- Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Back to citation occurrence 3.2 Back to citation occurrence 3.3 Chisholm 1911, p. 738.
Bibliography
- Zeigelbauer, Historia rei literariae O.S.B. iii
- Mackenzie, Lives, iii, and the Introduction to STS, edit. US.
- Blair, David Oswald Hunter (1912). "Ninian Winzet". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- Hewison, James King (1900). "Winzet, Ninian". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 62. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- Dilworth, Mark. "Winzet, Ninian (1518/19–1592)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29784. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)