VENDVILLE, JEAN. - Bishop of Tournai, b. at Lille on 24 June 1527, d. at Tournai on 15 Oct. 1592. At the age of 15 he went to Paris to attend courses in civil law, obtained his degree at Louvain, and subsequently became a professor at Douai. Giovanni d'Austria summoned him as a counsellor of state.
Together with his friend Allen, in 1567 he made a pilgrimage to Rome, presenting Pio V with a memorandum on the union of Christendom against the Turks and another on the foundation of a missionary seminary. On returning to his native country, he founded at Douai, together with Allen, the celebrated English Seminary, destroyed by the French Revolution. Having become a widower, he was ordained priest in the winter of 1580-81. On 29 May 1588 he was promoted to the bishopric of Tournai. He was the first to propose a concrete plan for a general Roman college « de Propaganda Fide » for the training of missionaries, which Pio V had examined. V. presented the memorandum again in 1578 to Gregorio XIII, and it was examined by the Jesuit father Antonio Possevino. On the occasion of his visit limina in 1589, V. for the third time proposed his plan to Sisto V and, in 1592, shortly before his death, to Clemente VIII. The death of the Pope and the circumstances of the time prevented its implementation at that time.
The memorandum was published only in 1870 at Tournai through the work of 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 Sixte V.