FEROTIN, MARIUS. - Benedictine monk, paleographer and historian of the liturgy, b. at Chateauneuf-sur-Rhone on 18 Nov. 1855. Having entered the monastery of Solesmes in 1874, he professed the monastic Rule on 8 Sept. 1876. From 1881 to 1892 he resided at St. Dominic of Silos in Spain, and in 1895 he moved to St. Michael of Farnborough, where he d. on 15 Sept. 1914.
He spent his life in prayer and study, and his mighty works on the Mozarabic liturgy show how versed he was in this field. Equal to the keenness of his intellect was the profound critical spirit that he turned to profit in the study of the Spanish early Middle Ages. In the monastery of Silos, in old Castile, he found documents of great historical interest for knowledge of Spanish religious life. The fruit of these researches was first a collection of the rich material existing in the monastery: Recueil des chartes de l'abbaye de Silos (Paris 1897), then a Histoire de l'Abbaye de Silos (ibid. 1897). Among the precious manuscripts existing there he found the Ritual in use in Spain before the Arab invasion of 712 and published it in vol. V of the Monumenta Ecclesiae liturgica: Le « Liber Ordinum », en usage dans l'Église oligothique et mozarabe de l'Espagne du VIe au XIe siècle (Paris 1904). In vol. VI of the same Monumenta he then published the Liber mozarabicus Sacromontorum et les monstants mozarabes (ibid. 1912). Other volumes were to follow on the Liber antiphonarum and on the Liber Orationum, but death prevented it.
He made many other publications in journals and in volumes, but his name remains strongly linked to the study of the Mozarabic liturgy, where he left a deep mark through the vastness of his researches, the breadth of his investigations and the seriousness of his judgments.
Bibliography
Silverio Mattei