Bartholomew or Bartolomeo Dos Martyres

Bartholomew Or Bartolomeo Dos Martyres so called from the name of the church of "Our Lady of Martyrs" at Lisbon, in which he was baptized, was one of the best men in the Romish Church of the 16th century. He was born at Lisbon in May, 1514, and assumed the habit of St. Dominic at Lisbon, 11th December, 1528. Having been for twenty years professor of philosophy and theology, his high reputation caused him to be selected as preceptor of the son of Dom Louis, infant of Portugal. It was only at the positive command of Louis of Granada, as his superior, that he accepted the archbishopric of Braga (1558), and that with such reluctance as threw him upon a bed of sickness. He entered upon his see on the 4th of October, 1559, and commenced at once the execution of his design of teaching his flock by his own example and that of his household. He selected one small room out of all the magnificent apartments of the palace; he furnished it like a cell; he went to bed at eleven at night, and rose at three in the morning; his bed was hard and scanty; his body always covered with the hair cloth; his table always poorly supplied. Of the usual attendants of great houses, such as maitres d'hotel, etc., he had none, contenting himself with a few necessary domestics. As soon as he had thus set his own house in order, he hastened to endeavor to do the same with the city of Braga and his diocese in general. He established schools and hospitals, and devoted himself to works of charity and mercy.' As one of the delegates to the Council of Trent, he especially signalized himself there by his zeal on the subject of the reform of the cardinals. On one occasion he delivered those well-known words on this subject, "Eminentissimi Cardinales eminentissima egent reformatione," and expressed his strong condemnation of their luxurious and unfitting kind of life. He it was also who first induced the council to begin their sessions with the question of the reform of the clergy. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII allowed him to resign his see, and he retired to a convent at Viana, where he died in 1590. His life was written by Isaac de Sacy, and his writings, among which the Stimulus Pastorum, a guide for bishops, has had the largest circulation, were published by P. d'Inguimbert at Rome, 1734-35 (2 vols. fol.), and by Fessler (Einsiedeln, 1863, 8vo).