LE NOURRY, le nai"ri', DENIS NICOLAS: A member of the Benedictine congregation of Saint Maur and a participant in their learned works; b. at Dieppe in 1647; d. at the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Paris, Mar. 24, 1724. He was educated by the French Oratorians, and entered the Benedictine order at Jumieges in 1665. He wrote the introduction to Garet's edition of Cassiodorus (2 vols., Rouen, 1679), and collaborated with Duchesne and Bellaise in the edition of Ambrose, which he completed with Du Friche (2 vols., Paris, 1686-90). He edited also the treatise De mortibus persecutorum (1710), attempting to prove that it was not written by Lactantius. His chief work, however, was his Apparatus ad bibliothecam veterum patrum (2 vols., 1694-97; 2d ed., enlarged, 2 vols., 1703-15), a historical and critical treatment, to the end of the fourth century, of the authors comprised in the Maxima bibliotheca veterum patrum (27 vols., Lyons, 1677).

(C. PFENDER.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Niceron, Memoires, i. 275-278; J. C. F. Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie generale, xxxviii. 680, 46 vols., Paris, 1855-56.

LENT: The forty days' fast preparatory to the celebration of Easter. The name appears in Middle English as Lenten, which goes back to Anglo-Saxon lencten, "spring" (cf. German Lenz ). The Latin name is Quadragesima, from the fortieth day before Easter, when it was approximately supposed to begin. By a similar loose calculation, the three preceding Sundays were known as Septuagesima (seventieth), Sexagesima (sixtieth), and Quinquagesima (fiftieth). Traces of the ancient variations in the length of the season still appear in the Roman Catholic practise of beginning from Septuagesima to wear vestments of violet, the Lenten color of mourning, and to omit from the services the Alleluia as an ejaculation of joy. For the history and observance of the fast, see FASTING, II.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bingham, Origines, XXl., i (best); E. Mart6ne, De antiquis ecclesitu ritibus, iii., chaps. 18-19, Antwerp, 1737; H. Liemke, Die Quadragesimalfaeten der Kirche, Paderborn, 1853; J. H. Blunt, Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology, pp. 407-408, London, 1870; W. E. Addis and T. Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, pp. 558560, ib. 1903; DCA, ii. 972-977 (gives early literature).