Achery, Jean-Luc d' (Dacherius)

ACHERY, Jean-Luc d' (Dacherius). - Learned editor of ancient ecclesiastical texts, b. at Saint-Quentin in 1609, a Benedictine of the Maurist congregation from 1632, d. 29 April 1685, in the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where from 1637 he was librarian.

Though sickly, he studied indefatigably and set his confreres, among them J. Mabillon, on the path of scholarly activity. He gathered and published many valuable holdings of libraries. Among his compilations the first place belongs to the collection Veterum scriptorum qui in Galliae bibliothecis, maxime Benedictorum, laturant spiciligium, 13 vols., Paris 1655-1677; the 3rd edition, revised and rearranged by L. F. J. de la Barre, was published in Paris in 1723, under the title: Spiciligium sive collectio veterum aliquot scriptorum (in 3 vols.). In this collection, which among other things contains various documents of conciliar acts and other important legal sources, there is published for the first time (vol. IX, p. 1 ff.) a systematic collection, called for that reason the Dacheriana, of councils and decretals, compiled in France between 774 and 831, divided into three parts which treat respectively of penance, of judgments and of the clergy.

Also important is the collection Asceticorum, vulgo spiritualium, opusculorum... indiculus, Paris 1648 (2nd ed. 1671). D'A. further published: B. Lanfranci opera (in the appendix: the life of St. Augustine, apostle of the English), Paris 1648; Guiberti abb. de Novitiatu opera, ibid. 1651; Grimlaici regula Solitoriorum, ibid. 1653; and the unpublished work of 1648 (Bibl. Nat. Paris, F. F. 16866, f. 120) entitled: Responses aux raisons des chanoines de l'ordre Saint-Augustin, de Sainte-Générale de Paris, et l'establissement du droit que les religieux de Saint-Germain-des-Prés ont de préséance dans les assemblées publiques et particulièrement ès enterremens des Roys. He was also among the chief collaborators of the Acta SS. Ord. s. Benedicti, and left a vast (unpublished) correspondence with the scholars of his time.

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