JEAN VENDÛVILLE. - Bishop of Tournai, b. 24 June 1527 at Lille, d. at Tournai 15 Oct. 1592. At the age of fifteen he went to Paris to attend courses in civil law, took his degree at Louvain and then became professor at Douai. John of Austria summoned him as a counsellor of state.
Together with his friend Allen he made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1567, presenting to Pius V a memorandum for the union of Christendom against the Turks and another on the foundation of a missionary seminary. On his return he founded at Douai, in conjunction with Allen, the celebrated English College, which was destroyed by the French Revolution. After being widowed, he was ordained priest in the winter of 1580-81. On 29 May 1588 he was promoted bishop of Tournai. He was the first to propose a concrete plan for a Roman general college “de Propaganda Fide” for the training of missionaries, which Pius V had examined. V. presented the same memorandum again in 1578 to Gregory XIII, who had it examined by the Jesuit Father Antonio Possevino. On the occasion of his visit ad limina in 1589 V. for the third time submitted his plan to Sixtus V, and in 1592, shortly before his death, to Clement VIII. The death of the Pope and the events of the time prevented its realization for the time being.
The memorandum was published only in 1870 at Tournai by Prof. Reussens under the title: La première idée du Collège de la Propagande, ou mémoire présenté en 1589 par J. V., évêque de Tournai, au souverain pontife Sistre V. BIBLICA.: V. A. Dessel, Bibliotheca Belgica, Louvain 1643, p. 575; Streit, Bibl., I, nos. 180, 1428; G. Goyau, L'Eglise en marche, Paris 1928, pp. 55-82. Nicola Kowalsky