QUENTIN, HENRI. — Benedictine historian and critic, first abbot of the Pontifical Abbey of St Jerome in Urbe. Born at St-Thierry, in the diocese of Reims (France), on 7 Oct. 1872; died in Rome on 4 Feb. 1935. He spent several years in the diocesan seminary, then entered (1894) the Abbey of Maredsous (Belgium), where he made his profession on 6 Oct. 1895. He transferred to the Abbey of Solesmes (France) on 6 Sept. 1897 and was ordained priest on 10 May 1902. He devoted himself to the study of conciliar collections and hagiographical questions, on which he published two volumes that brought him to prominence in the field of textual criticism. When the Commission for the Revision of the Vulgate was established in Rome (30 Apr. 1907), under the presidency of Abbot (later Cardinal) A. GASPIÈ (v.), Q. was called to be a member.
He went to Paris (1910–11) and to Spain (1912–13) to study and photograph the most important manuscripts of the Vulgate, using an apparatus he had specially designed for the Commission. During the war of 1914–18 he lived again in Paris without interrupting his work. On returning to Rome, he produced the results in his well-known *Mémoire sur l'établissement du texte de la Vulgate* (Collectanea Biblica, 6, Rome 1922), a fundamental work for the future direction of the revision itself and also for the development of textual criticism. In accordance with the principles established in this book, he published, under his own name, the first two volumes of the critical edition of the Hieronymian text: *Lib. Genesis* (Rome 1926), *Lib. Exodi et Levitici* (ibid. 1929).
In the meantime, Q. had become an effective member of the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology (23 June 1923) and had begun (1926) to give lectures on ecclesiastical history, hagiography and liturgy at the Pontifical Institute of Archaeology. On 6 Feb. 1930, Pius XI appointed him general rapporteur of the historical section of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, then newly established. With H. Delehaye (v.) he edited the critical edition of the Hieronymian Martyrology, published in *Acta SS. Novembris*, II, II (Brussels 1931).
On 21 Oct. 1933 he transferred from the Abbey of SS. Maurus and Mauricius of Clervaux (Luxembourg) to the Abbey of St Jerome in Urbe, founded by the bull *Inter praecipuas* of June 1933, with a group of monks entrusted by Pius XI with the task of continuing the work of revising the Vulgate under Q.’s direction. Appointed abbot of the new pontifical monastery on 10 March 1934, he died there suddenly less than a year later.
Of extraordinary erudition, a keen and profound critic, especially in the study of manuscripts, he directed scholars’ attention to the need for rigorous principles so as not to open the door to the subjective element of internal criticism. He established, for the revision of the Vulgate, a method of classifying manuscripts and editions which, after controversy, was generally accepted by scholars.
Besides the important works mentioned above and many articles in journals (especially in *Revue bénédictine*), in miscellanies and encyclopedias, he published: *Jean Dominique Mansi et les grandes collections de conciles, étude d'hist. litt.* (Paris 1900); *Les martyrol. hist. du moyen âge. Etude sur la formation du Martyrol. romain* (ibid. 1908); *Boninus Monumentis. Sanctarium seu vitae Sanctorum* (ibid. 1910), in collaboration with D. Brunet; *Notice histor. sur l'abbaye de Solesmes* (Tours 1924); *Essai de critique textuelle* (Paris 1926).