Home › T › Tanner (THOMAS an English clergyman)

Tanner (THOMAS an English clergyman)

THOMAS, an English clergyman; born in Market Lavington, Wiltshire, England, Jan. 25, 1674; after graduating from Queen's College, Oxford, was in 1696 elected a Fellow of All Souls. He had already a high reputation as an antiquary, and Wood at his death in 1695 left him the care of his papers. He took orders, and became in succession chaplain to his father-in-law, Bishop Moore of Norwich, chancellor of Norwich, prebendary of Ely, rector of Thorpe near Norwich, archdeacon of Norwich (1710), canon of Christ Church, Oxford (1723), and Bishop of St. Asaph (1732). An improved and enlarged edition of his "Notitia "Notitia Monastica" (on Monasteries 1695), appeared in folio under the care of his brother in 1744. But Bishop Tanner's fame rests hardly less securely on his great posthumous biographical and bibliographical work-the labor of 40 years, "Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica" (British Hibernian Library, ed. by Dr. D. Wilkins, 1748). His edition of Wood's "Athene Oxonienses" (The Oxonian Atheno), he had published in two volumes, folio, in 1721. He TANSY died in Oxford Dec. 14, 1735. See WOOD, ANTHONY.

TANNHÄUSER, or TANHÄUSER (tän-hoi'-zer), in old German legend, a knight who gains admission into a hill called the Venusberg, in the interior of which Venus holds her court, and who for a long time remains buried in sensual pleasures, but at last listens to the voice of the Virgin Mary, whom he hears calling on him to return. The goddess allows him to depart, when he hastens to Rome to seek from the Pope (Pope Urban) absolution for his sins. The Pope, however, when he knows the extent of the knight's guilt, declares to him that it is as impossible for him to obtain pardon as it is for the wand which he holds in his hand to bud and bring forth green leaves. Despairing, the knight retires from the presence of the pontiff, and enters the Venusberg once more. Meanwhile the Pope's wand actually begins to sprout, and the Pope, taking this as a to sign from God that there was still an opportunity of salvation for the knight, hastily sends messengers into all lands to seek for him. But Tannhäuser is never again seen. The Tannhäuser legend has been treated poetically by Tieck, and Richard Wagner has adopted it (with modifications) as the subject of one of his operas.