Victor Vitensis, an African bishop of the Province of Byzacena (called Vitensis from his See of Vita), b. probably about 430. His importance rests on his: “Historia persecutionis African Provincial, temporibus Geiserici et Hunirici regum Wandalorum”. This is mainly a contemporary narrative of the cruelties practised against the orthodox Christians of Northern Africa by the Arian Vandals. Formerly divided into five books, this work is now usually edited in three, of which the first, dealing with the reign of Geiseric (427-77), is derived from the accounts of others, while the second and third, covering the reign of Huneric, are a strictly contemporary account of events, of which the author was in the main an eyewitness. No exception can be taken to the accuracy of Victor’s narratives, except that at times he exaggerates, but when allowance is made for the stress of feeling under which the work was written, it can be seen that he records little that did not happen. Victor throws much light on social and religious conditions in Carthage and on the African liturgy of the period. His history contains many valuable documents not otherwise accessible, e. g. the Confession of Faith drawn up for the orthodox bishops by Eugenius of Carthage and presented to Huneric at the conference of Catholic and Arian bishops in 484. Two documents: a “ Passio beatissimorum martyrum qui apud Carthaginem passi sunt sub impio rege Hunerico (die VI. Non. Julias 484)” and a “Notitia Provinciarum et Civitatum Africa”, formerly appended to all the MSS. and now incorporated in the printed editions, are probably not Victor’s. The former may be the work of one of his contemporaries; the latter is a list of the Catholic bishops summoned to the conference of 484, arranged according to provinces, with an exact indication of the ecclesiastical geography of that portion of Africa.
The early editions of Victor are found in Mieng, LVIII, 179-276. Newer and more critical editions by HALM (Berlin, 1879) in Mon. Germ. Hist. :Auct. Antiq., III, 1; and PETSCHENIG (Vienna, 1881); Corpus Scrip. Eccles, Lat., VII; FERRERE, De Victoris Vitensis libro qui inscribitur historia persecutionis Africanae Provincial (Paris, 1898).
Patrick HEALY.
Victory, Frast or Our Lady or.—There are several feasts, in various churches, celebrated under this title. The best known are:
(1) 7 Oct., in commemoration of the naval victory near Lepanto on 7 Oct., 1571; instituted the same year as a greater double by Pius V; changed by Gregory XIII on 1 April, 1573, into the feast of the Holy Rosary, first Sunday of October. The original feast, 7 Oct., is still celebrated in many churches, e. g. in the dioceses of Messina and Nicosia, in the Church of Nuestra Sefiora del Palan, at Barcelona, Spain, and elsewhere.
(2) Fourth Sunday of October (Our Lady of Victories), double of the first class with octave, kept in the Church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Paris, in thanksgiving for the victory of Louis XIII over the Calvinists after the siege of La Rochelle in 1628. The celebrated Archconfraternity of Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, originated in this church.
(3) Second Sunday of November, at Prague, Bohemia, in the Carmelite church; and at Rome in Santa Maria della Vittoria, double of the first class, in commemoration of the battle of Weissenberg on 8 Nov., 1620. Formerly this feast was celebrated all over Bohemia and Silesia (double of the second class, Decree of 13 July, 1675).
(4) At Toledo, Spain, 6 Sept., greater double, in thanksgiving for the victory of the Cardinal Infant Ferdinand at Nordlingen, 6 Sept., 1634.
(5) The last Sunday of Sept., in the Diocese of Marsi, Italy, in commemoration of the victory of eee of Anjou over Conradin at Tagliocozzo in
See the corresponding officia propria; Holweck, Fasti Mariani (Freiburg, 1892).
I. G. Holweck.