RAM, PIERRE - FRANÇOIS - XAVIER de. - Belgian historian and prelate, b. Louvain, 2 Sept. 1804, d. there, 14 Nov. 1865. Ordained priest at Mechelen in 1827, he took an active part in the struggles of Belgian Catholics against the Dutch regime, especially by reprinting anti-Febronian writings of the 18th century (works by Feller, Zaccaria, etc.). At the same time, he began his own scholarly activity: after four volumes of Lives of the Saints and illustrious figures of the Netherlands in Flemish (Mechelen 1827), he completed a French translation, complicated by the Belgian component, of A. Butler’s *Lives of the Saints* (Louvain 1828–35, 20 vols.; Brussels 1846–50, 7 vols.).
Following the revolution that led to national independence, the bishops of Belgium decided to establish a Catholic university, and the young priest de R. became its first rector and organizer, first at Mechelen (1834), then at Louvain (from 1835 until his death). His efforts in these formative years laid the groundwork for the flourishing development of this meritorious institution.
Alongside his external and administrative work, de R. maintained an uncommon level of scholarly output: his bibliography comprises 205 entries, including several quarto volumes. His historical studies first focused on hagiography, particularly that of Belgium; to the youthful works already mentioned were added monographs, and later a *Hagiographie nationale* (Louvain 1864–68, 2 vols.), unfortunately left incomplete. In this field, he earned great merit for his enlightened intervention in favor of the resumption of the Bollandist edition of the *Acta Sanctorum*, which foreign scholars wished to continue abroad in a reduced form; his intervention was decisive in the reconstitution in 1837, by Belgian Jesuits, of the Bollandist Society.
For ecclesiastical history, especially of Belgium, de R. was one of the leading figures of the new national school. Member of the Royal Commission on History (1834) and of the Belgian National Academy (1857), he published in the collections of these bodies extensive memoirs and unpublished texts, e.g., the *Chronicum Ducum Brabantiae* of Edmond de Dynter (d. 1448; Brussels 1854–60, 3 vols.), and the *Historia rerum Lovanensium* of Johannes Molanus (ibid. 1861–62, 2 vols.). His plan for a *Belgica sacra*, in collaboration with Abbot Bax, was never realized, but in 1863 he succeeded in taking charge of a new periodical: *Analectes pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique de Belgique* (ibid. 1864–66). Fundamental in this regard remains his *Synodicon belgicum, sive acta omnium ecclesiarum Belgii a Concilio Tridentino usque ad 1801*. The work, which expanded upon a project by G. F. van De Velde, was intended to comprise seven or eight volumes but remained incomplete: vols. I–II (Mechelen 1828–29) contain the acts of the diocese of Mechelen, vol. III (ibid. 1839) those of Ghent, and vol. IV (ibid. 1858) those of Antwerp. Finally, de R. took a keen interest in the history of the ancient University of Louvain and wrote excellent profiles of its principal theologians.