WELCOME! THE BOLLANDISTS ~ Part I ~ Acta sanctorum, January volume, published in 1643 The Bollandists were an association of ecclesiastical scholars engaged in editing the Acta Sanctorum . This work is a great hagiographical collection begun during the first years of the seventeenth century, and continued to our own day. The collaborators are called Bollandists, as being successors of Bolland, the editor of the first volume. Although Bolland has given his name to the work, he is not to be regarded as its founder. The idea was first conceived by Heribert Rosweyde (died at Antwerp, 1629). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1588 and explored the libraries of the numerous monasteries scattered through Hainault and French Flanders. He copied with his own hand a vast number of documents relating to church history in general, and to hagiography in particular, and found in the old texts contained in the manuscripts coming under his observation quite a different flavour from t...