BRNO (BRÜNN), Diocese of. - The capital of Moravia (Czechoslovakia), with an area of 10,370 sq. km. and a population of 1,259,613, of whom 1,113,189 are Catholics; it comprises 449 parishes with 1,044 churches, 786 diocesan priests, and 160 regular clergy. The diocese extends over the southwestern part of Moravia. Its principal cities are: B., the Moravian capital, Jihlava, Třebíč, and Znojmo. In this territory, the Catholic faith was spread in the 9th century by SS. Cyril and Methodius (v.).
During the Hussite disturbances, this part of Moravia remained Catholic; however, it largely converted to Lutheranism under the early Habsburgs. In the period of the Counter-Reformation, it returned to the Catholic faith. Brno, already a provostship since 1296, was elevated to a bishopric by Pius VI at the request of Empress Maria Theresa on 5 December 1777, through the division of the Archdiocese of Olomouc.
Among the most eminent bishops were Matěj František Count Chorinský (1777–86), Cardinal František Sales Bauer (1882–1904), and Josef Kupka (1926–41). Among the priests who distinguished themselves as scholars and patriots were Canon František Sušil, professor of Sacred Scripture, and Josef Pospíšil, professor of philosophy. Besides the cathedral chapter of Brno, there is the collegiate church of Mikulov, founded in 1625. Brno has strong academic traditions. Notable are the university library (about half a million volumes) and that of the Theological Institute; there are also the civic library, the library of the Augustinian convent, and the archive of the church of St James, founded in the 14th century, containing valuable manuscripts and historical documents. Near Brno stands the large and rich Benedictine library of Rajhrad (Raigern), the first monastery in Moravia, founded in 1048.
Among the cultural institutions may be mentioned the Theological Institute, Masaryk University, the Polytechnic, the important cultural society Matice Moravská, and the higher school of religious culture, a diocesan gymnasium and lyceum. Monasteries are found in Brno and elsewhere in the diocese: Augustinian in Brno, Benedictine in Rajhrad, Premonstratensian in Nová Říše, and others of various male religious orders.
The most notable Romanesque monuments in the diocese are the church of St Procopius in Třebíč and the conventual church of the Cistercian nuns Porta Coeli at Předklášteří. Of the churches in Brno, the most important are the Gothic cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, destroyed in 1645 and restored in 1748 and 1908; St James, Gothic of the 14th century; St Thomas, Gothic of the 14th century, rebuilt in Baroque style in the 17th century; and the Gothic conventual church of the Augustinians from the 14th century. The church of St Mary at Křtiny near Brno, in Baroque style, has the largest and most monumental dome in Central Europe.
BROCA, Paul-Pierre. - French surgeon, naturalist, and anthropologist, b. at Ste-Foy-la-Grande on 28 June 1824, d. in Paris on 9 July 1880. He founded in 1859 the Société d’Anthropologie and in 1876 the École d’Anthropologie. An evolutionist and agnostic, he left a vigorous lecture of 1870 “On Transformism,” in which he demonstrates that the so-called theory of organic evolution is essentially a philosophical interpretation to which agnosticism is driven regarding the origin of living beings, and not a doctrine arrived at by induction.
BROCARDELLI, LUCIA, Blessed: V. LUCIA DA NARNI, Blessed.
BROCARDUS, LEGAL. - Some hold that the expression brocardus is derived from a corruption of the word burcardus, a term by which the Decretum of Burchard of Worms was transferred, otherwise known as the Collectanea canonum or Liber decretorum.
The purpose of the legal literary genre of the brocardi was to condense general principles of law into maxims and at the same time to provide the occasion and framework for a logical elaboration of the law.
The general principles, originally derived as arguments from individual texts and annotated (argumentum, nota, notabilia) in their margins, were later extracted and furnished with supporting texts, and juxtaposed with contrary general principles, also presented with their supporting texts. Regularly, logical connections (often with distinctiones) were established between opposing principles, and reasons for their reconciliation (solutiones contrariorum) were deduced. In this way, a logical system of general principles was achieved, which formed the basis of the juridical dialectic of the time. A typical elaborated example of this complex literary genre in the field of civil law is provided towards the end of the 12th century by the glossator Pillio da Medicina in a work entitled Libellus disputatorius. He also calls the entire collection of quaestiones Brocarda, and each individual part a quaestio. However, he uses the term brocarda there not in the technical sense of the genre of generalia, but in the broader sense of a discussion pro and contra, which he describes as follows: «Brocardica materia dicitur quae est contrariarum opinionum rationibus involuta».