ROSWEY (ROSWEYDE), HERIBERTUS. - Jesuit, hagiographer, b. at Utrecht on 20 Jan. 1564, d. at Amsterdam on 4 Oct. 1629.
Having entered the Order in 1588, he devoted the time free from his duties to hagiographical studies. Having become convinced, through his researches in the monastic libraries of Flanders, that the ancient sources presented the saints in a light different from that of popular lives and collections, he conceived the plan of compiling a critical collection of biographies, based on the most authoritative sources. In 1607 he launched his programme: Fasti sanctorum, quorum vitae in Belgicis bibliothecis manuscriptae, which was to comprise 18 vols. (3 preliminary volumes, 12 of saints’ lives, 1 of martyrologies, and 2 of indexes and tables). The time absorbed by other occupations prevented him from carrying out the plan, which was subsequently taken up by Fr. Bolland and his colleagues.
He did, however, publish: Martyrologium Romanum parvum (Antwerp 1613), to which he added the Martyrology of Ado; Vitae Patrum... historiam eremiticam complexentes (ibid. 1615; also in PL 73 and 74); Thomas e Kempis, De Imitatione Christi... cum vindictis hempenibus (ibid. 1617); Chronicon Canonic. Regularium ordinis S. Augustini Capituli Windesemensis; accedit Chronicon Montis S. Agnetis (ibid. 1621).