ST

VINCENT FERRER (1355-1419)  , Spanish Dominican preacher, was born of respectable parentage at Valencia on the 23rd of January 1355 . In February 1374 he took the Dominican habit, and after spending some years in teaching, and in completing his theological studies, he was licensed to preach . He graduated as doctor of theology at Lerida in 1374, and his sermons in the cathedral of Valencia from 1385 onwards soon became famous . Cardinal Peter de Luna took him with him to Paris in 1391; and on his own election to the pontificate as antipope Benedict XIII. made Ferrer his confessor and master of the sacred palace . Finding, however, the ecclesiastical atmosphere of Avignon an uncongenial one, he in 1397 resumed his work as a preacher, and Spain, France, Italy, Germany and Great Britain and Ireland were successively visited by him; and in every case numerous conversions were the result of his eloquence, which is described as having been singularly powerful and moving . In 1412 he was delegated by his native city to take part in the election of a successor to the vacant crown of Aragon; and in 1416 he received a special invitation to attend the council of Constance, where he supported the cause of the Flagellants (q.v.) . He died at Vannes on the 5th of April 1419, and was canonized by Calixtus III. in 1455, his festival (duplex) being observed on the 5th of April . See A . Sorbelli, Il trattato di S . Vincenzo Ferrer intorno al Grande Scisma d' Occidente (Bologna, 1906) .